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Mars Base

New Horizons Web Site - 0 views

pluto.jhuapl.edu/...piPerspective.php

scibyte30 newhorizons

shared by Mars Base on 21 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • January 19, 2012
  • launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, on January 19, 2006
  • sixth anniversary
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • nine-year flight from launch to the beginning of Pluto encounter in January 2015 is two-thirds over
  • summer’s wakeup will be a “24 hour” near-encounter rehearsal
  • execute a (nearly) daylong segment of our Pluto encounter sequence on the spacecraft
  • New Horizons will make every maneuver, every scan and every observation that it actually will do around closest approach in 2015
  • ’ll check out every system (and its backup) on New Horizons
  • check out each of the seven scientific instruments
  • collect more science data than we have in any previous wakeup
  • update the software for our primary spacecraft command and control computer
  • removing a bug that occasionally causes it to reset
  • uplink almost two-dozen improvements to our onboard autonomous fault detection and automatic response software
  • Horizons team will use a wide variety of telescopes to intensively probe the space between Pluto and Charon for possible satellites, rings and other kinds of debris structures
  • begin to work through some 260-plus malfunction and contingency scenarios that we’ve identified as possible “gotchas” at Pluto
  • data New Horizons sends back — maps, spectra, plasma data, radio science and more — will provide a detailed view of Pluto and its system of moons
  • knowledge of Pluto will literally expand from a single fact sheet’s worth of information, to textbook-length tomes.
Mars Base

Double Dispatch: Self-Balancing Electric Unicycle - 0 views

www.stephanboyer.com/...lancing-electric-unicycle.html

scibyte27

shared by Mars Base on 30 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • A custom MIG-welded steel chassisA 450 Watt electric motorTwo 7 Ah 12 Volt batteriesA 5DOF intertial measurement unitThe OSMC H-bridgeAn ATmega328P microcontroller
  • operates much like a Segway -- you lean forward to accelerate, and lean back to brake
  • holding in my right hand (in the video at the bottom) is a "kill switch" -- if I let go of it, the unicycle deactivates the motor,
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Bullet integrates readings from the gyro and accelerometer using a complementary filter. To balance, the angle estimate is fed through a PID loop (with no integral term). The loop runs at 625 Hz. The output from this stage determines the duty cycle of a 1.22 kHz PWM signal, which is connected to the H-bridge. The code was written in C, and is in the public domain.
  • It took me several hours to be able to ride in a straight line without crashing, and it took several days to learn how to turn in a controlled manner. Many of my friends have tried riding it, usually with little success (including some actual unicyclers).
  • I am certainly not the first person to build an electric unicycle. Perhaps the most well-known self-balancing unicycle is Trevor Blackwell's Eunicycle, which also uses the OSMC. His design is similar to mine, but uses a much more expensive battery pack ($218 for his vs $44 for mine). Also, the Eunicycle's motor and gearbox cost a grand total of $644, whereas Bullet's drive system (including the wheel itself) was $195. Finally, the IMU he uses is about $100 more than mine. Overall, Bullet is several hundred dollars cheaper than the Eunicycle, but this comes at a price (mostly weight).
Mars Base

Phobos-Grunt's Mysterious Thruster Activation: A Function of Safe Mode or Just Good Luck? - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...of-safe-mode-or-just-good-luck

scibyte22 Phobos-Grunt

shared by Mars Base on 17 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • Phobos-Grunt probe is still stuck in orbit
  • periodically the spacecraft experiences a mysterious slight boost in its orbit
  • The activation of the spacecraft’s thrusters – the small engines that are designed to steer the craft and make small adjustments  – was an obvious answer.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • the probe “Corrects her orbit” every now and then.
  • Does this mean that the probe knows where she is? Probably not.
  • If Grunt’s safe mode includes a program that fires thrusters every so often to keep the craft from entering the atmosphere in the event of a malfunction just after reaching low Earth orbit
  • continues to occur, we can expect that the predicted date of atmospheric entry will be moved back again, just as it was moved from late December/early November to mid-January after the first orbital correction episode
  • it could buy more time for controllers to establish communication –although Roscosmos has stated that December is the limit for correcting the problem
Mars Base

Write to Me Only With Thine Eyes - ScienceNOW - 0 views

news.sciencemag.org/...o-me-only-with-thine-eyes.html

scibyte56 communication

shared by Mars Base on 26 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • People "locked in" by paralyzing disorders
  • have long relied on blinks or facial twitches to build sentences one letter at a time
  • Over three 30-minute sessions, he trained six volunteers
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • For the volunteers, who couldn't see what they were writing, it was like writing with a pen that had run out of ink
  • some participants had a harder time of learning to control their eye movements than others
  • by the end of the sessions most could freely draw legible letters and numbers
  • reverse phi motion." The illusion helped reveal that when the brightness of an object changes rapidly; our brain "sees" the object moving in the opposite direction.
  • Mars Base on 26 Jul 12
     
    ckly as they can write with a pen. In addition to providing a new medium for self-expression, the technique challenges traditional ideas about the limits of human vision. In 1970, illusionist and cognitive psychologist Stuart Anstis of the University of California, San Diego, was playing around
Mars Base

Egg In Tiny Doses Curbs Allergy - Science News - 0 views

www.sciencenews.org/...gg_in_tiny_doses_curbs_allergy

scibyte55 AllergyTreatment

shared by Mars Base on 19 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • Exposure to increasing amounts of egg every day over two years can seemingly rid some children of an egg allergy
  • gradual introduction into the diet appears to re-train the immune system
  • Many other children in the study developed an ability to cope with small amounts of egg without a serious reaction — but only while being treated
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • interest in providing protection from an accidental reaction” than in having the child gain a new food group
  • 55 children ages 5 to 11 with egg allergies, confirmed by skin-prick tests, medical history and the presence of antibodies to egg protein
  • All of them got an unmarked powder added to their food daily
  • Forty kids were randomly assigned to receive the egg treatment and 15 got cornstarch as a control
  • treatment amounted to a few grains of powdered egg white on the first day and gradually grew to the equivalent of one-third of an egg
  • After 22 months, 30 of the 40 children getting the treatment were able to consume 10 grams of powdered egg white without having a visible reaction
  • Five of the 40 did have a reaction to the egg test, as did all children in the placebo group
  • Another five children who had allergic reactions to the initial treatment dropped out of the study early on
  • Four to six weeks after stopping treatment, the children who didn’t react to the egg test got tested again
  • with 10 grams of egg white powder plus a cooked egg
  • Eleven passed that test. A year later, 10 of them were eating eggs at will
  • remaining challenges will be to identify beforehand which children are the most likely to benefit from the treatment
  • predictions may emerge from tests of their immune cells and proteins
  • blood tests of kids whose treatment succeeded showed an accumulation of positive immune changes during treatment
  • reaction. Whether those changes are permanent is unknown
  • about 10 percent of children given this type of oral treatment for egg, peanut or milk allergies — including roughly that fraction in this study — have reactions early and drop out, Burks says. “For a small group of kids, this isn’t the right therapy
  • Don’t try this at home. The Food and Drug Administration would need to approve an oral treatment for clinical use.
Mars Base

Danish Rocketeers Launch Private Space Capsule Test | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/st-copenhagen-suborbitals.html

scibyte59 GrabBag

shared by Mars Base on 14 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • A Danish non-profit organization launched its homemade space capsule
  • Aug. 12
  • Copenhagen Suborbitals
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • capsule
  • blasted off from a floating platform in the Baltic Sea
  • The flight was designed to see how well the LES
  • Launch Escape System (LES
  • various parachutes would work in the event of a serious launch mishap
  • results were a bit mixed,
  • LES spinning out of control and cutting Beautiful Betty loose at an altitude too low for the capsule's parachutes to deploy properly. Betty slammed hard into the ocean
  • Still, the
  • was pleased.
  • The ultimate goal
  • , is to launch people into suborbital space on the cheap
  • The group relies on private donations and money from sponsors to fund its activities.
  • working fulltime to develop a series of suborbital space vehicles — designed to pave the way for manned spaceflight on a micro size spacecraft
Mars Base

Full Titanic site mapped for 1st time - 0 views

www.physorg.com/...-03-full-titanic-site-1st.html

scibyte37 Titantic

shared by Mars Base on 09 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • April 10, 1912 file photo, the Luxury liner Titanic departs Southampton, England
  • Researchers have pieced together what's believed to be the first comprehensive map of the entire 3-by-5-mile Titanic debris field
  • Marks on the muddy ocean bottom suggest, for instance, that the stern rotated like a helicopter blade as the ship sank, rather than plunging straight down
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • sonar imaging and more than 100,000 photos taken from underwater robots to create the map
  • Explorers of the Titanic
  • have known for more than 25 years where the bow and stern landed
  • previous maps of the floor around the wreckage were incomplete
  • mapping took place in the summer of 2010 during an expedition to the Titanic led by RMS Titanic Inc., the legal custodian of the wreck
  • joined by other groups, as well as the cable History channel
  • Details on the new findings
  • are not being revealed yet
  • the network will air them in a two-hour documentary on April 15, exactly 100 years after the Titanic sank
  • high-resolution photos - 130,000 of them in all
  • self-controlled robots known
  • along the ocean bottom day and night
  • moving at a little more than 3 miles per hour as they traversed back and forth in a grid along the bottom
  • photos were stitched together on a computer to provide a detailed photo mosaic of the debris
  • layout of the wreck site and where the pieces landed provide new clues on exactly what happened
  • Computer simulations will re-enact the sinking in reverse, bringing the wreckage debris back to the surface and reassembled
Mars Base

ESA - ESA Spacecraft Operations - ESA station keeps contact with Russian Mars mission P... - 0 views

www.esa.int/...SEM5AJZW5VG_0.html

scibyte23 Phobos-Grunt

shared by Mars Base on 24 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • Following the first successful contact on Tuesday, ESA's tracking station in Australia again established two-way communication with Russia's Phobos–Grunt spacecraft on 23 November
  • data received from the spacecraft have been sent to the Russian mission control centre for analysis
  • The first pass was successful in that the spacecraft's radio downlink was commanded to switch on and telemetry was received
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • The signals received from Phobos–Grunt were much stronger than those initially received on 22 November, in part due to having better knowledge of the spacecraft's orbital position
  • Telemetry typically includes information on the status and health of a spacecraft's systems
  • 24 November
Mars Base

China tells embassies to stop issuing pollution data - 0 views

phys.org/...bassies-issuing-pollution.html

scibyte50 ChinaPollution

shared by Mars Base on 06 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • China said foreign embassies were acting illegally in issuing their own air quality readings and that only the government could release data on the nation's heavy pollution.
  • until recently, official air quality measurements regularly rated their air quality as good
  • data from the US embassy in Beijing showed off-the-chart pollution
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • US embassy air quality Twitter feed gained a major following in Beijing, and later in Shanghai when it was introduced at the US consulate there
  • Beijing announced earlier this year it would change the way it measured air quality to include the smaller particles experts say make up much of the pollution in Chinese cities, after a vocal campaign
  • publishing of China's air quality are related to the public interests and as such are powers reserved for the government
  • vice minister of environment protection
  • did not name the US, but called on embassies to abide by China's laws
  • China's air quality is among the worst in the world
  • According to the latest Environmental Performance Index compiled by Yale University, China ranked 128th out of 132 countries for air quality.
  • Most Chinese cities base their air-quality information on particles of 10 micrometres or larger
  • China seeks to control the sources of particulates, such as coal burning and auto emissions
Mars Base

New energy source for future medical implants: sugar - 0 views

phys.org/...e-future-medical-implants.html

scibyte51 medical FuelCell

shared by Mars Base on 13 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • This silicon wafer consists of glucose fuel cells of varying sizes; the largest is 64 by 64 mm
  • MIT engineers have developed a fuel cell that runs on the same sugar that powers human cells: glucose
  • This glucose fuel cell could be used to drive highly efficient brain implants of the future, which could help paralyzed patients move their arms and legs again
  • ...22 more annotations...
  • strips electrons from glucose molecules to create a small electric current
  • The idea of a glucose fuel cell is not new
  • In the 1970s, scientists showed they could power a pacemaker with a glucose fuel cell, but the idea was abandoned in favor of lithium-ion batteries, which could provide significantly more power per unit area than glucose fuel cells
  • glucose fuel cells also utilized enzymes that proved to be impractical for long-term implantation in the body, since they eventually ceased to function efficiently
  • The new twist
  • is that it is fabricated from silicon, using the same technology used to make semiconductor electronic chips
  • has no biological components
  • consists of a platinum catalyst that strips electrons from glucose
  • mimicking the activity of cellular enzymes that break down glucose to generate ATP
  • So far, the fuel cell can generate up to hundreds of microwatts — enough to power an ultra-low-power and clinically useful neural implant.
  • in theory, the glucose fuel cell could get all the sugar it needs from the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) that bathes the brain and protects it from banging into the skull
  • are very few cells in the CSF
  • There is also significant glucose in the CSF, which does not generally get used by the body
  • only a small fraction of the available power is utilized by the glucose fuel cell, the impact on the brain’s function would likely be small.
  • the work is a good step toward developing implantable medical devices that don’t require external power sources.
  • ultra-low-power electronics, having pioneered such designs for cochlear implants and brain implants
  • combined with such ultra-low-power electronics, can enable brain implants or other implants to be completely self-powered
  • group has worked on all aspects of implantable brain-machine interfaces and neural prosthetics, including recording from nerves, stimulating nerves
  • decoding nerve signals and communicating wirelessly with implants
  • designed to record electrical activity from hundreds of neurons in the brain’s motor cortex, which is responsible for controlling movement
  • data is amplified and converted into a digital signal so that computers
  • can analyze it and determine which patterns of brain activity produce movement
Mars Base

Engineers build 50 gigapixel camera - 0 views

phys.org/...2012-06-gigapixel-camera.html

scibyte52 camera

shared by Mars Base on 21 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • resolution is five times better than 20/20 human vision over a 120 degree horizontal field.
  • capture up to 50 gigapixels of data, which is 50,000 megapixels
  • most consumer cameras
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • ranging from 8 to 40 megapixels
  • researchers believe that within five years
  • gigapixel cameras should be available to the general public
  • Traditionally, one way of making better optics has been to add more glass elements, which increases complexity
  • camera was developed by
  • Duke's Pratt School of Engineering
  • University of Arizona
  • University of California
  • Distant Focus Corp
  • The camera is so large now because of the electronic control boards and the need to add components to keep it from overheating
  • prototype camera itself is two-and-half feet square and 20 inches dee
  • only about three percent of the camera is made of the optical elements
  • arrange for some overlap
Mars Base

Countdown to Pluto - 0 views

phys.org/...2014-01-countdown-pluto.html

scibyte116 newhorizons

shared by Mars Base on 16 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • One of the fastest spacecraft ever built—NASA's New Horizons—
  • at nearly one million miles per day
  • The encounter begins next January
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • Closest approach is scheduled for July 2015 when New Horizons flies only 10,000 km from Pluto
  • The first step, in January 2015, is an intensive campaign of photography by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager or "LORRI."
  • This will help mission controllers pinpoint Pluto's location, which is uncertain by a few thousand kilometers
  • use the images to refine Pluto's distance from the spacecraft, and then fire the engines to make any necessary corrections
  • By late April 2015, the approaching spacecraft will be taking pictures of Pluto that surpass the best images from Hubble
  • If New Horizons flew over Earth at the same altitude, it could see individual buildings and their shapes
  • Other than a few indistinct markings seen from afar by Hubble, Pluto's landscape is totally unexplored
  • "If you drove a car around the equator of Pluto, the odometer would rack up almost 5,000 miles-as far as from Manhattan to Moscow."
  • possibility that New Horizons will discover new moons and rings as well
Mars Base

SpaceShipTwo Goes Supersonic in Third Rocket-Powered Test Flight - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...upersonic-in-third-test-flight

scibyte115 PrivateSpaceTravel

shared by Mars Base on 11 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • 2014 should be the year that Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo (SS2) brings passengers on suborbital space flights
  • the company started off the year by successfully completing its third rocket-powered supersonic flight
  • after dozens of successful subsonic test flights
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • They tested the spaceship’s Reaction Control System, the newly installed thermal protection coating on the vehicle’s tail booms, and the “feather” re-entry system.
  • the RCS will allow its pilots to maneuver the vehicle in space so that passengers will have great views of Earth, as well as aiding the positioning process for spacecraft re-entry
  • The new reflective protection coating on SS2’s inner tail boom surfaces is being evaluated to help maintain vehicle skin temperatures while the rocket motor is firing. Remove this ad
  • The WhiteKnightTwo (WK2) carrier aircraft brought SS2 to an altitude around 46,000 ft.
  • Then SS2 was released, and its rocket motor was ignited, powering the spaceship to a planned altitude of 71,000 ft.
  • SS2’s highest altitude to date, and it also reached a speed of Mach 1.4.
Mars Base

Yutu rover Suffers Significant Setback at Start of 2nd Lunar Night - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...ck-at-start-of-2nd-lunar-night

scibyte117 ChineseSpaceProgram

shared by Mars Base on 29 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • The six wheeled Yutu rover, which means ‘Jade Rabbit’, has “experienced a mechanical control abnormality” in a new report by China’s official government newspaper, The People’s Daily. Remove this ad
  • ‘Jade Rabbit’ was traversing southwards from the landing site as the incident occurred just days ago – about six weeks into its planned 3 month moon roving expedition
  • very few details have emerged or been released by the Chinese government about Yutu’s condition or fate
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • The abnormality occurred due to the “complicated lunar surface environment,” said the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence
  • took place just prior to the beginning of the 2nd lunar night and
  • ‘dormancy’ for both ‘Jade Rabbit’ and the Chang’e-3
  • Based on unofficial accounts, it appears that one of the solar panels did not fold back properly over Yutu’s mast after it was lowered to the required horizontal position into a warmed box to shield and protect it from the extremely frigid lunar night time temperatures
  • could potentially spell doom for the mast mounted instruments and electronic systems, including the color and navigation cameras and the high gain antenna, if true
  • each Lunar night also lasts approximately 14 Earth days
  • there is no communication possible during sleep mode, no one will know until the resumption of daylight some two weeks from now – around Feb. 8 to 9.
Mars Base

China's Jade Rabbit Lunar Rover Comes Back to Life After Malfunction - 0 views

www.scienceworldreport.com/...omes-back-life-malfunction.htm

scibyte120 ChineseSpaceProgram

shared by Mars Base on 14 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • China's state news agency, Xinhua, reported
  • that the rover
  • recovered from its previous non-responsive state and is now fully awake and able to receive signals
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • China's lunar program spokesman Pei Zhaoyu told Xinhua
  • the rover was reported to have been lost after it failed to communicate with Chinese mission controllers
  • various media outlets around the world filed an obituary for the lunar rover after Xinhua reported its alleged death
Mars Base

China's Yutu Moon Rover Alive and Awake for 3rd Lunar Day of Exploration despite Malfun... - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...xploration-despite-malfunction

scibyte120 ChineseSpaceProgram

shared by Mars Base on 15 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • As night fell on Jan. 25, the rover entered its second two week long period of dormancy just as the rover “experienced a mechanical control abnormality,” according to a report by China’s official government newspaper, The People’s Daily.
  • concerned that it might not be able to survive the extremely low temperatures during the lunar night
  • Experts wer
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Each lunar day and night lasts for alternating periods of 14 Earth days
  • During each long night, the Moon’s temperatures plunge dramatically to below minus 180 Celsius, or minus 292 degrees Fahrenheit
  • The 140 kg Yutu robot is located some 100 m south of the lander.
  • February 13
  • (Feb. 12) amateur radio operators at UHF-satcom reported detection of a signal from Yutu.
Mars Base

Earth Bids China's Yutu Moon Rover Farewell Forever! - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...tu-moon-rover-farewell-forever

scibyte120 ChineseSpaceProgram

shared by Mars Base on 12 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • The apparently unfortunate and sad breaking news was just reported today in an ultra brief dispatch by the English language version of Chinadaily – with the headline “Loss of lunar rover.”
  • thought that Yutu froze to death due to a pre-hibernation mechanical malfunction and failed to wake up and communicate with China’s mission controllers
  • Beijing on Monday, Feb. 10, when daylight returned to the rovers Moon landing site at Mare Imbrium (Sea of Rains) at the start of what would have been Lunar Day 3 for the mission.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • The cause of the pre-hibernation malfunction may perhaps be traced back to a buildup of abrasive lunar dust, but no one knows at this time.
Mars Base

Doctors hope for cure in a second baby born with HIV (Update) - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...-03-doctors-baby-born-hiv.html

scibyte123 HIVTreatment

shared by Mars Base on 08 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • A second American baby born with the AIDS virus may have had her infection put into remission and possibly cured by very early treatment—in this instance, four hours after birth.
  • The girl was born
  • a month after researchers announced the first case from Mississippi
  • ...27 more annotations...
  • that led doctors worldwide to rethink how fast and hard to treat infants born with HIV
  • In another AIDS-related development, scientists have modified genes in the blood cells of a dozen adults to help them resist HIV.
  • The Mississippi baby is now 3 1/2 and seems HIV-free despite no treatment for about two years
  • baby is still getting AIDS medicines, so the status of her infection is not as clear.
  • A host of sophisticated tests at multiple times suggest the LA baby has completely cleared the virus
  • The baby's signs are different from what doctors see in patients whose infections are merely suppressed by successful treatment,
  • don't know if the baby is in remission ... but it looks like
  • Doctors are cautious about suggesting she has been cured
  • Most HIV-infected moms in the U.S. get AIDS medicines during pregnancy, which greatly cuts the chances they will pass the virus to their babies
  • The LA baby was born
  • mother
  • was not taking her HIV medicines
  • Four weeks later, half of the patients were temporarily taken off AIDS medicines to see the gene therapy's effect
  • started the baby on them a few hours after birth. Tests later confirmed she had been infected, but does not appear to be now, nearly a year later
  • study in adults was prompted by an AIDS patient who appears cured after getting a cell transplant seven years ago
  • from a donor with natural immunity to the virus
  • Only about 1 percent of people have two copies of the gene that gives this protection
  • HIV usually infects blood cells through a protein on their surface called CCR5. A California company, Sangamo BioSciences Inc., makes a treatment that can knock out a gene that makes CCR5.
  • tested it in 12 HIV patients who had their blood filtered to remove some of their cells. The treated cells were infused back into the patients
  • The mom was given AIDS drugs during labor to try to prevent transmission of the virus
  • The Mississippi girl was treated until she was 18 months old, when doctors lost contact with her
  • Ten months later when she returned, they could find no sign of infection even though the mom had stopped giving her AIDS medicines.
  • a federally funded study just getting underway to see if very early treatment can cure HIV infection
  • About 60 babies in the U.S. and other countries will get very aggressive treatment that will be discontinued if tests over a long time, possibly two years, suggest no active infection.
  • The virus returned in all but one of them; that patient turned out to have one copy of the protective gene
  • knew that the virus was going to come back in most of the patients
  • the hope is that the modified cells eventually will outnumber the rest and give the patient a way to control viral levels without medicines
Mars Base

Publishers withdraw more than 120 gibberish papers : Nature News & Comment - 0 views

www.nature.com/...n-120-gibberish-papers-1.14763

scibyte122

shared by Mars Base on 28 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • The publishers Springer and IEEE are removing more than 120 papers from their subscription services after a French researcher discovered that the works were computer-generated nonsense.
  • Over the past two years
  • catalogued computer-generated papers that made it into more than 30 published conference proceedings between 2008 and 2013
  • ...21 more annotations...
  • Sixteen appeared in publications by Springer
  • more than 100 were published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE),
  • One of the named authors replied t
  • said that he first learned of the article when conference organizers notified his university in December 2013;
  • he does not know why he was a listed co-author on the paper.
  • Among the works
  • a paper published as a proceeding from the 2013 International Conference on Quality, Reliability, Risk, Maintenance, and Safety Engineering, held in Chengdu, China.
  • The authors of the paper, entitled ‘TIC: a methodology for the construction of e-commerce’,
  • in the abstract that they “concentrate our efforts on disproving that spreadsheets can be made knowledge-based, empathic, and compact”.
  • a way to automatically detect manuscripts composed by a piece of software called SCIgen, which randomly combines strings of words to produce fake computer-science papers
  • SCIgen was invented in 2005 by researchers
  • to prove that conferences would accept meaningless papers — and, as they put it, “to maximize amusement”
  • A related program generates random physics manuscript titles on the satirical website arXiv vs. snarXiv.
  • SCIgen is free to download and use, and it is unclear how many people have done so, or for what purposes
  • SCIgen’s output has occasionally popped up at conferences, when researchers have submitted nonsense papers and then revealed the trick.
  • Most of the conferences took place in China, and most of the fake papers have authors with Chinese affiliations.
  • The papers are quite easy to spot,” says Labbé, who has built a website where users can test whether papers have been created using SCIgen.
  • involves searching for characteristic vocabulary generated by SCIgen
  • In April 2010, he used SCIgen to generate 102 fake papers by a fictional author called Ike Antkare
  • showed how easy it was to add these fake papers to the Google Scholar database
  • There is a long history of journalists and researchers getting spoof papers accepted in conferences or by journals to reveal weaknesses in academic quality controls
Mars Base

Astronomers Identify the Largest Yellow "Hypergiant" Star Known - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...t-yellow-hypergiant-star-known

scibyte124 star

shared by Mars Base on 13 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • A recent analysis of a star in the south hemisphere constellation of Centaurus has highlighted the role that amateurs play in assisting with professional discoveries in astronomy.
  • The stats for
  • the binary system weighs in at a combined 39 solar masses, has a radius of over 1,300 times that of our Sun, and is a million times as luminous
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • Located 3,600 parsecs or over 11,700 light years distant, the star is 50% larger than the famous red giant Betelgeuse
  • down into the center of our own solar system, and it would extend out over 6 astronomical units (A.U.s) past the orbit of Jupiter
  • also has a relatively small companion star orbiting across our line of sight once every 1300 days
  • The companion star
  • is also a large star in its own right at around six solar masses and 400 solar radii in size.
  • the surface-to-surface distance for the A and B components of the system are “only” about 2.8 A.U.s apart
  • This all means that these two massive stars are in physical contact, with the expanded outer atmosphere of the bloated primary contacting the secondary, giving the pair a distorted peanut shape.
  • yellow hypergiants are some of the brightest stars known
  • That’s just 16x times fainter than the apparent visual magnitude of a Full Moon but over 100 times brighter than Venus
  • if you placed a star like HR 5171 A 32 light years from the Earth, it would easily cast a shadow.
  • the discovery of a companion around such a bright star was a big surprise since any ‘normal’ star should at least be 10,000 times fainter than the hypergiant
  • the hypergiant was much bigger than expected
  • What we see is not the companion itself, but the regions gravitationally controlled and filled by the wind from the hypergiant
  • These latest measurements place HR 5171 A firmly in the “Top 10” for largest stars in terms of size known, as well as the largest yellow hypergiant star known
  • Only eight yellow hypergiants have been identified in our Milky Way galaxy
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