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Chris Fisher

47 year old television signals bouncing back to Earth - 0 views

www.rimmell.com/news.htm

scibyte bbc television signals

shared by Chris Fisher on 12 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • "I realised the signal was in the VHF Band and slap bang in the middle of 41-68 MHz. It was obviously old terrestrial television broadcasts, but they seemed to be originating from deep space.
  • "They are signals that left the Earth about 50 years ago and have bounced off an object or more likely a field of objects some 25 light years away".
  • Radio signals travel at approximately 300,000 kilometers per second.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • we asked NASA if they could point Hubble at the centre of what we've named the 'Bounce Anomaly'. NASA were very keen to help once they had seen our data."
  • However the $3 billion space telescope was unable to produce any clues as to what the signals are bouncing off. One theory is a massive cloud of asteroids is acting like a mirror in space reflecting radio signals from our past, back to us.
  • "We now know these are original broadcasts. So far we have recovered about 7 weeks of old television signals from space. Every day in our lab is like traveling back in time. And speaking of which we have just started the digital recovery of signals that contain lost Doctor Who episodes.
Mars Base

Wireless signals could transform brain trauma diagnostics - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...-brain-trauma-diagnostics.html

scibyte94 brain

shared by Mars Base on 15 May 13 - No Cached
  • New technology
  • is using wireless signals to provide real-time, non-invasive diagnoses of brain swelling or bleeding.
  • The device analyzes data from low energy, electromagnetic waves, similar to the kind used to transmit radio and mobile signals
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • The technology
  • could potentially become a cost-effective tool for medical diagnostics and to triage injuries in areas where access to medical care, especially medical imaging, is limited
  • The researchers tested a prototype in a small-scale pilot study of healthy adults and brain trauma patients admitted to a military hospital for the Mexican Army
  • The results from the healthy patients were clearly distinguishable from those with brain damage, and data for bleeding was distinct from those for swelling
  • symptoms of serious head injuries and brain damage are not always immediately obvious, and for treatment, time is of the essence.
  • The researchers took advantage of the characteristic changes in tissue composition and structure in brain injuries
  • For brain edemas, swelling results from an increase in fluid in the tissue
  • For brain hematomas, internal bleeding causes the buildup of blood in certain regions of the brain.
  • Because fluid conducts electricity differently than brain tissue, it is possible to measure changes in electromagnetic properties.
  • Computer algorithms interpret the changes to determine the likelihood of injury.
  • The study involved 46 healthy adults, ages 18 to 48, and eight patients with brain damage, ages 27 to 70.
  • engineers fashioned two coils into a helmet-like device, fitted over the heads of the study participants
  • One coil acts as a radio emitter and the other serves as the receiver. Electromagnetic signals are broadcast through the brain from the emitter to the receiver
  • the waves are extremely weak, and are comparable to standing in a room with the radio or television turned on
  • The device's diagnoses for the brain trauma patients in the study matched the results obtained from conventional computerized tomography (CT) scans
Mars Base

Mars Colonists Wanted to Explore Red Planet | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/-colony-astronauts-wanted.html

scibyte77 MarsOne

shared by Mars Base on 09 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • The Netherlands-based nonprofit Mars One, which hopes to put the first boots on the Red Planet in 2023, released its basic astronaut requirements
  • (Jan. 8),
  • televised global selection process that will begin later this year.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • anyone who is at least 18 years old can apply to become a Mars colony pioneer
  • important criteria, officials say, are intelligence, good mental and physical health and dedication to the project, as astronauts will undergo eight years of training before launch.
  • Mars One plans to launch a series of robotic cargo missions between 2016 and 2021, which will build a habitable Red Planet outpost ahead of the arrival of the first four colonists in 2023.
  • More settlers will arrive every two years after that. There are no plans to return the pioneers to Earth
  • fund most of its ambitious activities by staging a global reality-TV event
  • Well before the official Astronaut Selection Program, we received more than 1,000 emails from individuals who desire to go to Mars
Mars Base

'Bionic man' goes on show at British musuem - 0 views

phys.org/...-02-bionic-british-musuem.html

scibyte81 BionicMan

shared by Mars Base on 06 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • Rex, which is short for "Robotic Exoskeleton", the six foot six inch (two metre) humanoid with its uncannily life-like face was assembled by leading roboticists for a television programme
  • The creation includes key advances in prosthetic technology, as well as an artificial pancreas, kidney, spleen and trachea and a functional blood circulatory system
  • the museum in London
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • museum exhibit
  • will explore changing perceptions of human identity against the background of rapid progress in bionics
  • Rex is not strictly bionic as he does not include living tissue
Mars Base

Frequent multitaskers are bad at it: Motorists overrate ability to talk on cell phones ... - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...rs-bad-motorists-overrate.html

scibyte79 multitasking

shared by Mars Base on 24 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • Most people believe they can multitask effectively, but a
  • study indicates that people who multitask the most – including talking on a cell phone while driving – are least capable of doing so.
  • data suggest the people talking on cell phones while driving are people who probably shouldn't. We showed that people who multitask the most are those who appear to be the least capable of multitasking effectively
  • ...22 more annotations...
  • The people who are most likely to multitask harbor the illusion they are better than average at it, when in fact they are no better than average and often worse
  • The study ran 310 undergraduate psychology students through a battery of tests and questionnaires to measure actual multitasking ability, perceived multitasking ability, cell phone use while driving, use of a wide array of electronic media, and personality traits such as impulsivity and sensation-seeking.
  • people who score high on a test of actual multitasking ability tend not to multitask because they are better able to focus attention on the task at hand
  • 70 percent of participants thought they were above average at multitasking, which is statistically impossible
  • The more people multitask by talking on cell phones while driving or by using multiple media at once, the more they lack the actual ability to multitask, and their perceived multitasking ability "was found to be significantly inflated
  • People with high levels of impulsivity and sensation-seeking reported more multitasking
  • there was an exception: People who talk on cell phones while driving tend not to be impulsive, indicating that cell phone use is a deliberate choice
  • research suggests that people who engage in multitasking often do so not because they have the ability, but "because they are less able to block out distractions and focus on a singular task
  • The study participants were 310 University of Utah psychology undergraduates – 176 female and 134 male with a median age of 21 – who volunteered for their department's subject pool in exchange for extra course credit.
  • To measure actual multitasking ability, participants performed a test named Operation Span, or OSPAN.
  • The test involves two tasks: memorization and math computation
  • Participants must remember two to seven letters, each separated by a math equation that they must identify as true or false
  • A simple example of a question: "is 2+4=6?, g, is 3-2=2?, a, is 4x3=12." Answer: true, g, false, a, true.
  • Participants also ranked their perceptions of their own multitasking ability by giving themselves a score ranging from zero to 100, with 50 percent meaning average.
  • Study subjects reported how often they used a cell phone while driving, and what percentage of the time they are on the phone while driving
  • also completed a survey of how often and for how many hours they use which media, including printed material, television and video, computer video, music, nonmusic audio, video games, phone, instant and text messaging, e-mail, the Web and other computer software such as word processing
  • researchers looked for significant correlations among results of the various tests and questionnaires
  • people who multitask the most tend to be impulsive, sensation-seeking, overconfident of their multitasking abilities, and they tend to be less capable of multitasking
  • 25 percent of the people who performed best on the OSPAN test of multitasking ability "are the people who are least likely to multitask and are most likely to do one thing at a time
  • 70 percent of participants said they were above-average at multitasking, and they were more likely to multitask
  • Media multitasking – except cell phone use while driving – correlated significantly with impulsivity, particularly the inability to concentrate and acting without thinking.
  • Multitasking, including cell phone use while driving, correlated significantly with sensation-seeking, indicating some people multitask because it is more stimulating, interesting and challenging, and less boring – even if it may hurt their overall performance
Mars Base

Meteor strike in Russia hurts almost 1,000 (w/ Video) - 0 views

phys.org/...ower-panic-central-russia.html

scibyte82 RussianMeteor

shared by Mars Base on 16 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • The fall of such a large meteor estimated as weighing dozens of tonnes was extremely rare
  • 950 people were injured, with two-thirds of the injuries light wounds from glass shards and other materials blown out by the shockwave
  • the ministry saying almost 300 buildings were damaged including schools, hospitals, a zinc factory and even an ice hockey stadium
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • At 9:20 am (0320 GMT), an object was observed above Chelyabinsk which flew by at great speed and left a trail behind. Within two minutes there were two bangs," regional emergencies official Yuri Burenko
  • office of the local governor said that a meteorite had fallen into a lake outside the town of Chebarkul in the Chelyabinsk region and television images pointed to a six-metre (20-foot) hole in the frozen lake's ice
  • it has yet to be finally confirmed if meteorite fragments made contact with the Earth and there were no reports that any locals had been hurt directly by a falling piece of meteorite
  • the shock wave blew out windows amid temperatures as low as minus 18 degrees Celsius (zero degrees Fahrenheit
  • Russian Academy of Sciences
  • estimated the body to be several metres long and weighing several dozen tonnes
  • The meteor explosion appears to be one of the most stunning cosmic events above Russia since the 1908 Tunguska Event
  • With the meteor quickly a leading trend on Twitter
  • locals posted amateur footage on YouTube showing men swearing in surprise and fright, and others grinding their cars to a halt
  • virtually impossible" to spot objects such as the meteor that struck Russia, which he called a "tiny asteroid", ahead of time against a daytime sky
  • The Chelyabinsk region is Russia's industrial heartland
  • huge facilities that include a nuclear power plant and the massive Mayak atomic waste storage and treatment centre
  • radiation levels in the region also did not change and that 20,000 rescue workers had been dispatched to help the injured and locate those requiring help
Mars Base

Asteroid Miners Wanted to Tap Space Rock Riches | Planetary Resources | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/lanetary-resources-hiring.html

sciByte44 Asteroid AsteroidMining

shared by Mars Base on 25 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • One of the reasons that we chose to announce the company at this time is because we're beginning to aggressively search for the world's best engineers, to complement our team
  • looking for engineers to help design and build a fleet of asteroid-mining robots
  • not a motley crew led by Bruce Willis
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • among its investors Google execs Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, who are worth $16.7 billion and $6.2 billion
  • company's advisers include filmmaker and adventurer James Cameron, former NASA astronaut Tom Jones and MIT planetary scientist Sara Seager
  • Water can be broken into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen, the chief components of rocket fuel
  • platinum-group metals it plans to extract will help lower the cost of many products here on Earth, including hand-held electronic devices and monitors for televisions and computers.
Mars Base

Library of Congress Acquires Sagan's Personal Collection, Thanks to Seth MacFarlane - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...tion-thanks-to-seth-macfarlane

scibyte53 cosmos CarlSagan SethMacFarlane

shared by Mars Base on 27 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • Carl Sagan’s personal archive — a comprehensive collection of papers contained within 798 boxes — was delivered to the Library of Congress recently for sorting… thanks in no small part to “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane
  • MacFarlane provided an “undisclosed sum of money” to the Library to purchase the collection from Sagan’s widow Ann Druyan, who had kept the papers preserved in storage
  • MacFarlane has been working to bring Sagan’s Cosmos series back to television, with Neil deGrasse Tyson reprising Sagan’s role
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Tyson who introduced MacFarlane to Druyan, and apparently got a peek at the astrophysicist’s impressive collection of papers, which “ranges from childhood report cards to college term papers to eloquent letters written just before his untimely death in 1996 at age 62.”
  • organization, a process expected to take several months
  • files labeled F/C, for ‘fissured ceramics,’ Sagan’s code name for letters from crackpots
Mars Base

Private Manned Mars Mission Gets First Sponsors | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/mars-one-mission-sponsors.html

scibyte61 GrabBag PrivateSpaceTravel mars

shared by Mars Base on 01 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • A Dutch company that aims to land humans on Mars in 2023 as the vanguard of a permanent Red Planet colony has received its first funding from sponsors
  • Mars One plans to fund most of its ambitious activities via a global reality-TV media event
  • follow the mission from the selection of astronauts through their first years on the Red Planet
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Receipt
  • Initial sponsors include Byte Internet (a Dutch Internet/Webhosting provider); Dutch lawfirm VBC Notarissen; Dutch consulting company MeetIn; New-Energy.tv (an independent Dutch web station that focuses on energy and climate); and Dejan SEO (an Australia-based search engine optimization firm). [
  • Mars One aims to launch a series of robotic missions between 2016 and 2020 that will build a habitable outpost on the Red Planet. The first four astronauts will set foot on Mars in 2023, and more will arrive every two years after that. There are no plans to return these pioneers to Earth.
  • Mars One estimates that it will cost about $6 billion to put the first four humans on the Red Planet
  • hopes the "Big Brother"-style reality show will pay most of these costs
  • televised action is slated to begin in 2013, when Mars One begins the process of selecting its 40-person astronaut corps
Mars Base

Nighttime smartphone use zaps workers' energy - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...140122170624.htm

scibyte117

shared by Mars Base on 23 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • In a pair of studies surveying a broad spectrum of U.S. workers
  • found that people who monitored their smart phones for business purposes after 9 p.m. were more tired and were less engaged the following day on the job.
  • More than half of U.S. adults own a smartphone
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • Many consider the devices to be among the most important tools ever invented when it comes to increasing productivity of knowledge-based work
  • the National Sleep Foundation says only 40 percent of Americans get enough sleep on most nights
  • a commonly cited reason is smartphone usage for work.
  • the first study, the researchers had 82 upper-level managers complete multiple surveys every day for two weeks.
  • The second study surveyed 161 employees daily in a variety of occupations -- from nursing to manufacturing and from accounting to dentistry
  • both studies
  • showed that nighttime smartphone usage for business purposes cut into sleep and sapped workers' energy the next day in the office
  • The second study also compared smartphone usage to other electronic devices and found that smartphones had a larger negative effect than watching television and using laptop and tablet computers
  • In addition to keeping people mentally engaged at night, smartphones emit "blue light"
  • the most disruptive of all colors of light. Blue light is known to hinder melatonin, a chemical in the body that promotes sleep
  • nighttime use of smartphones appears to have both psychological and physiological effects on people's ability to sleep and on sleep's essential recovery functions
  • "There may be times in which putting off work until the next day would have disastrous consequences and using your smartphone is well worth the negative effects on less important tasks the next day,"
  • "But on many other nights, more sleep may be your best bet."
  • Johnson, MSU assistant professor of management
Mars Base

It's Official: Voyager 1 Is Now In Interstellar Space - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...1-is-now-in-interstellar-space

scibyte102 Voyager1

shared by Mars Base on 13 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • NASA says the most distant human made object — the Voyager 1 spacecraft — is in interstellar space
  • It actually made the transition about a year ago
  • there is a bit of an argument on the semantics of whether Voyager 1 is still inside or outside of our Solar System
  • ...44 more annotations...
  • it is not farther out than the Oort Cloud
  • it will take 300 more years reach the Oort cloud and the spacecraft is closer to our Sun than any other star
  • the plasma environment Voyager 1 now travels through has definitely changed from what comes from our Sun to the plasma that is present in the space between stars.
  • debate
  • There’s also been a
  • between the latest various science papers and their authors
  • Scientists thought that when the spacecraft had crossed over into interstellar space, the magnetic field direction would change
  • that didn’t happen
  • scientists determined they needed to look at the properties of the plasma instead
  • The Sun’s heliosphere is filled with ionized plasma from the Sun
  • Outside that bubble, the plasma comes from the explosions of other stars millions of years ago
  • The main tell-tail difference is the interstellar plasma is denser.
  • the real instrument that was designed to make the measurements on the plasma quit working in the 1980’s
  • Instead they used the plasma wave instrument, located on the 10-meter long antennas on Voyager 1 and
  • from the Sun
  • a massive Coronal Mass Ejection
  • The antennas have radio receivers at the ends – “like the rabbit ears on old television sets
  • The CME erupted from the Sun in March 2012, and eventually arrived at Voyager 1′s location 13 months later, in April 2013
  • Because of the CME, the plasma around the spacecraft began to vibrate like a violin string
  • The pitch of the oscillations helped scientists determine the density of the plasma
  • the particular oscillations meant the spacecraft was bathed in plasma more than 40 times denser than what they had encountered in the outer layer of the heliosphere
  • The plasma wave science team reviewed its data and found an earlier, fainter set of oscillations in October and November 2012 from other CMEs
  • extrapolation of measured plasma densities from both events, the team determined Voyager 1 first entered interstellar space in August 2012
  • certainly in a new region at the edge of the solar system where things are changing rapidly
  • not yet able to say that Voyager 1 has entered interstellar space
  • the data are changing in ways that the team didn’t expect
  • after further review, the Voyager team generally accepts the August 2012 date as the date of interstellar arrival
  • The charged particle and plasma changes were what would have been expected during a crossing of the heliopause
  • expect the fields and particles science instruments on Voyager will continue to send back data through at least 2020
  • , it was first questioned in August of 2012, with more speculation in December 2012, then in March of 2013
  • Then about a month ago
  • Voyager 2, launched before Voyager 1, is the longest continuously operated spacecraft
  • emitted signals are currently very dim, at about 23 watts — the power of a refrigerator light bulb
  • Voyager mission controllers still talk to or receive data from Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 every day
  • planetary alignment that only happens every 176 years enabled the two spacecraft to join together to reach all the outer planets in a 12 year time period
  • By the time the signals get to Earth, they are a fraction of a billion-billionth of a watt
  • Data from Voyager 1′s instruments are transmitted to Earth typically at 160 bits per second
  • signal from Voyager 1 takes about 17 hours to travel to Earth.
  • After the data are transmitted to JPL and processed by the science teams, Voyager data are made publicly available
  • Scientists do not know when Voyager 1 will reach the undisturbed part of interstellar space where there is no influence from our Sun
  • They also are not certain when Voyager 2 is expected to cross into interstellar space, but they believe it is not very far behind.
  • While Voyager 1 will keep going, we will not always be able to communicate with it, as we do now
  • In 2025 all instruments will be turned off, and the science team will be able to operate the spacecraft for about 10 years after that to just get engineering data
  • In the year 40,272 AD, Voyager 1 will come within 1.7 light years of an obscure star in the constellation Ursa Minor
Mars Base

SpaceX Aborts Thanksgiving Rocket Launch Due to Engine Trouble | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/hanksgiving-rocket-launch.html

scibyte111 SpaceX

shared by Mars Base on 01 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket fired its engines and was moments away from liftoff from Cape Canaveral
  • but the commercial booster aborted the launch after computers detected the engines were too slow building up thrust.
  • Engineers raced to understand and resolve the problem, but they could not get comfortable enough to attempt the launch again
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • Officials had not announced a new target launch date
  • SpaceX was targeting liftoff of the 22-story rocket at 5:39 p.m. EST (2239 GMT) Thursday, aiming to achieve the first Thanksgiving Day launch from Florida's Space Coast since 1959
  • The launch was pushed back to Thursday after multiple technical problems thwarted an initial launch attempt Monday
  • The rocket's mission is to place the SES 8 television broadcasting satellite into orbit
  • e highest altitude ever achieved by a SpaceX launch.
  • the flight is critical to SpaceX's future in the commercial launch market, in which it competes against stalwart launch vehicles from Europe and Russia to haul large telecommunications satellites into orbit.
  • The Falcon 9 pressurized its propellant tanks, switched to internal power and ignited its nine Merlin 1D first stage engines a few seconds before the appointed launch time
  • the Falcon 9's computer-controlled countdown sequencer recognized a problem and called off the launch
  • As engineers continued to study the problem, SpaceX elected to restart the countdown to preserve a chance to launch Thursday
  • Ultimately, however, SpaceX said they could not get comfortable with the issue in time and ordered another hold with less than a minute left in the day's second countdown.
Mars Base

June 17 - Today in Science History - Scientists born on June 17th, died, and events - 0 views

www.todayinsci.com/...6_17.htm

scibyte134 LookingBackJun

shared by Mars Base on 05 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • Armstrong demonstration of FM radio to FCC
  • In 1936, Edwin H. Armstrong demonstrated his invention of FM radio in Washington D.C. to a fact-finding investigation conducted by the Federal Communications Commission into the future of radio and television. His revolutionary method modulated the frequency of a broadcast radio wave to carry the audio signal (FM), instead of the existing use of amplitude modulation (AM). Armstrong's new system utilized a higher frequency band than was used by existing commercial radio transmitters. It eliminated all static and outside interference. Several hundred representatives of the radio industry were present. Armstrong presented the differences between the old and new methods with a series of sound-film recordings of the same program under the different conditions. FM was clear of the hissing, buzzing and crackling static noises of AM
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