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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

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

Gone perhaps, but Kepler won't soon be forgotten | Atom & Cosmos | Science News - 0 views

www.sciencenews.org/..._Kepler_wont_soon_be_forgotten

scibyte95 Kepler

shared by Mars Base on 25 May 13 - No Cached
  • When scientists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics scheduled a conference called “Exoplanets in the Post-Kepler Era,” they figured that era would still be several years away
  • . When
  • Kepler into space
  • ...23 more annotations...
  • astronomers knew that the galaxy contained at least 350 exoplanets, nearly all of them the size of Jupiter or larger
  • Kepler’s then spent four years
  • added nearly 3,000 planets
  • It will take at least several weeks before they beam commands up to the $600-million telescope, and they admit that a fix is a long shot.
  • Kepler engineers
  • strategizing about how to remotely repair one of two broken reaction wheels that precisely point the telescope
  • astronomers are convinced that the Milky Way contains hundreds of billions of planets, roughly one for every star, with at least 17 billion of them Earth-sized
  • NASA’s next exoplanet-hunting mission, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, which is scheduled for a 2017 launch
  • Whereas Kepler has fixed its gaze on distant stars, TESS will focus on bright, nearby stars so that powerful telescopes like the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope will be able to probe the atmospheres of planets that TESS discovers
  • s TESS
  • while less sensitive than Kepler, will nonetheless uncover plenty of planets in our neighborhood, including a handful of Earth-sized worlds
  • Astronomers
  • Other astronomers
  • are still optimistic. They have a year of data from the telescope left to analyze
  • quite possibly including an Earth-sized planet orbiting a sunlike star at a distance suitable for life
  • Astronomers hope to pair size measurements of planets observed by telescopes such as TESS with mass readings from ground-based scopes that look for subtle wobbles in stars’ motion caused by the gravitational pull of orbiting planets.
  • Several years ago
  • radial velocity, could pick out only hulking planets that delivered a hard yank to their stars
  • lately the technology has improved so drastically that in October 2012, the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher instrument
  • spotted what appears to be a planet only slightly heavier than Earth tightly orbiting Alpha Centauri B, a sunlike star a mere 4.4 light-years away
  • Kepler’s main goal was to determine the frequency of Earthlike planets in the galaxy
  • have enough data to make an intelligent extrapolation about what that number is, but
  • actually determining that number
Mars Base

Mars Science Laboratory: Images - 0 views

mars.jpl.nasa.gov/...images

scibyte94 Curiosity

shared by Mars Base on 21 May 13 - No Cached
  • This pair of images from the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows the rock target "Cumberland" before and after Curiosity drilled into it to collect a sample for analysis
  • The "before" image was taken during the 275th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity's work on Mars (May 15, 2013).
  • Curiosity drilled into Cumberland on Sol 279 (May 19, 2013) and took the second image later that same sol.
Mars Base

Mars Science Laboratory: NASA Mars Rover Curiosity Drills Second Rock Target - 0 views

mars.jpl.nasa.gov/...index.cfm

scibyte94 Curiosity

shared by Mars Base on 21 May 13 - No Cached
  • The first was Curiosity's drilling at a target called "John Klein" three months ago
  • Cumberland resembles John Klein and lies about nine feet (2.75 meters) farther west
  • The hole that Curiosity drilled into Cumberland on May 19 is about 0.6 inch (1.6 centimeters) in diameter and about 2.6 inches (6.6 centimeters) deep
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • The science team expects to use analysis of material from Cumberland to check
  • Preliminary findings from analysis of
  • rock powder by Curiosity's onboard laboratory instruments indicate that the location long ago had environmental conditions favorable for microbial life
Mars Base

NASA - Astronauts Complete Spacewalk to Repair Ammonia Leak, Station Changes Command - 0 views

www.nasa.gov/...e35_051113_eva.html

scibyte94 iss ViewerFeedback

shared by Mars Base on 19 May 13 - No Cached
  • Expedition 35 Flight Engineers
  • completed a spacewalk
  • to inspect and replace a pump controller box on the International Space Station’s far port truss (P6) leaking ammonia coolant
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • A little more than 2 1/2 hours into the spacewalk
  • removed the 260-pound pump controller box from the P6 truss and replaced it with a spare that had been stowed nearby
  • Spacewalkers practice underwater in the facility and divers provide assistance and dive safety protection during spacewalk simulations
  • The spacewalk is the 168th in support of the assembly and maintenance of the space
  • The device contains the mechanical systems that drive the cooling functions for the port truss.
Mars Base

Emergency Spacewalk Likely for 'Serious' ISS Coolant Leak - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...y-for-serious-iss-coolant-leak

scibyte94 iss ViewerFeedback

shared by Mars Base on 19 May 13 - No Cached
  • while the coolant is vital to the operation of the ISS for the electricity-supplying systems, the crew is not in any danger
  • The ammonia cools the 2B power channel, one of eight power channels that control the all the various power-using systems at the ISS
  • All the systems that use power from the 2B channel, the problem area, are being transferred throughout the day to another channel
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • The 2B channel will eventually shut down when the coolant is depleted, and the power is being diverted in order to keep everything up and running on the station
  • While Cassidy and Marshburn prepare in space, Astronauts at NASA’s Johnson Space Center are using the Neutral Buoyancy lab – a 12- meter (40 ft.) deep swimming pool with mockups of the space station that simulates the zero-gravity conditions in space – going through the entire expected EVA
Mars Base

158255285 - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...158255285

scibyte93 opportunity

shared by Mars Base on 19 May 13 - No Cached
  • Mars Base on 19 May 13
     
    Soviet Lunokhod-2 lunar rover. Credit: Ria Novosti
Mars Base

More Insight on How NASA Might Revive the Kepler Space Telescope - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...ive-the-kepler-space-telescope

scibyte94 Kepler

shared by Mars Base on 19 May 13 - No Cached
  • there’s still a year and a half’s worth of data in the pipeline that scientists will analyze to identify other candidate planets, and there will continue to be Kepler science discoveries for quite some time
  • There are two possible ways to salvage the spacecraft
  • they could try turning back on the reaction wheel that they shut off a year ago. It was putting metal on metal, and the friction was interfering with its operation
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • could see if the lubricant that is in there, having sat quietly, has redistributed itself, and maybe it will work
  • The other scheme,
  • this has never been tried, involves using thrusters and the solar pressure exerted on the solar panels to try and act as a third reaction wheel and provide additional pointing stability
  • Kepler carries a photometer, not a camera, that looks at the brightness of stars, and so its optics deliberately defocus light from stars to create a nice spread of light on the detector, which is not ideal for spotting asteroids
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

Billion-year-old water could hold clues to life on Earth and Mars - 0 views

phys.org/...old-clues-life-earth-mars.html

scibyte94 AncientWater

shared by Mars Base on 16 May 13 - No Cached
  • A UK-Canadian team of scientists has discovered ancient pockets of water, which have been isolated deep underground for billions of years and contain abundant chemicals known to support life
  • This water could be some of the oldest on the planet and may even contain life
  • the similarity between the rocks that trapped it and those on Mars raises the hope that comparable life-sustaining water could lie buried beneath the red planet's surface
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • Researchers
  • analysed water pouring out of boreholes from a mine 2.4 kilometres beneath Ontario, Canada
  • found that the water is rich in dissolved gases like hydrogen, methane and different forms – called isotopes – of noble gases such as helium, neon, argon and xenon
  • there is as much hydrogen in the water as around hydrothermal vents in the deep ocean, many of which teem with microscopic life
  • The hydrogen and methane come from the interaction between the rock and water, as well as natural radioactive elements in the rock reacting with the water
  • These gases could provide energy for microbes that may not have been exposed to the sun for billions of years.
  • The crystalline rocks surrounding the water are thought to be around 2.7 billion years old. But no-one thought the water could be the same age, until now
  • Using ground-breaking techniques
  • researchers show that the fluid is at least 1.5 billion years old, but could be significantly older.
  • interconnected fluid system in the deep Canadian crystalline basement that is billions of years old, and capable of supporting life
  • Before this finding, the only water of this age was found trapped in tiny bubbles in rock and is incapable of supporting life
  • the water found in the Canadian mine pours from the rock at a rate of nearly two litres per minute
  • don't yet know if the underground system in Canada sustains life
Mars Base

This Sound Camera Could Help You Fix Your Car | Popular Science - 0 views

www.popsci.com/...camera-makes-heatmap-out-sound

scibyte94 car

shared by Mars Base on 10 May 13 - No Cached
  • Developed by researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, the camera creates a heatmap-like view of machinery (or anything else
  • 30 digital microphones and a high-res camera pick up on what's making noise, and an image shows the different levels of noise, organized by a color gradient
  • Blue means a little noise, while red is the most extreme level.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • not the first sound camera, but at about 4 pounds, it's one of the most portable
Mars Base

Nine-Year-Old Mars Rover Passes 40-Year-Old Record - NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory - 0 views

www.jpl.nasa.gov/...news.php

scibyte94 opportunity

shared by Mars Base on 18 May 13 - No Cached
  • Apollo 17 astronauts
  • for three days in December 1972
  • drove their mission's Lunar Roving Vehicle 19.3 nautical miles (22.210 statute miles or 35.744 kilometers
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