Science & TechnologyS


Airplane

F-16 Drones: Aging F-16 converted into a target-practice drone


Wired.com
Fri, 27 Sep 2013 00:00 UTC
F-16
© U.S. Air Force photo/Master Sgt. J. Scott WilcoxA QF-16 Full Scale Aerial Target from the 82nd Aerial Targets Squadron flies over the Gulf of Mexico during its first unmanned flight at Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla., Sept. 19. The 82nd ATRS operates the Department of Defense’s only full-scale aerial target program. The QF-16 will provide fourth generation fighter representation of real world threats for testing and training, say operators.
After nearly 40 years as the cornerstone of the U.S. Air Force's fighter fleet, the F-16 tried out a a new role last week: robotic flying bull's-eye.

A modified F-16 took flight from Tindall Air Force Base in Florida without a pilot so it could be blown to smithereens. The Boeing retrofit of retired Lockheed Martin F-16s will be used as target practice for training situations under the name QF-16.

"The QF-16 full-scale aerial targets will be used to test newly developed weapons and train pilots for the rapidly changing nature of warfare in a safe and controlled environment," said Boeing in a statement.

"It was a little different to see an F-16 take off without anyone in it, but it was a great flight all the way around," said Lt. Col. Ryan Inman, Commander, 82nd Aerial Targets Squadron. "It's a replication of current, real world situations and aircraft platforms they can shoot as a target. Now we have a mission capable, highly sustainable full scale aerial target to take us into the future."

During last week's test, a pair of QF-16s aced taking off and landing on its own, as well as performing a series of simulated maneuvers. It also flew at 40,000 feet and broke the sound barrier at Mach 1.47.
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Document

Fake scientific paper fools 157 journals

Jennifer Viegas
Discovery News
Thu, 03 Oct 2013 13:00 UTC
Fake Documents
© iStock
A spoof scientific report was recently accepted for publication in 157 journals around the world, proving how flawed some open-access publications are.

The fake paper was part of a sting operation orchestrated by John Bohannon, a contributing news correspondent to the prestigious peer-reviewed journal Science.

He wrote the paper under the fake name "Ocorrafoo Cobange," supposedly a biologist at the Wassee Institute of Medicine in Asmara. No such institute or biologist exists.

Bohannon, in an article in the latest issue of Science, describes the fake paper as follows:

"Molecule X from lichen species Y inhibits the growth of cancer cell Z. To substitute for those variables, I created a database of molecules, lichens, and cancer cell lines and wrote a computer program to generate hundreds of unique papers."

That might sound reasonable enough, but the study was riddled with obvious errors and contradictions that an expert in the field should have caught immediately.

Bohannon took the sting operation one step further, by slightly changing each version of the paper before he sent it out to the various journals.
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Info

Human brain boiled in its skull lasted 4000 years

Colin Barras
NewScientist
Thu, 03 Oct 2013 13:55 UTC
Burnt Brain
© Halic University IstanbulNo burnt log.
Shaken, scorched and boiled in its own juices, this 4000-year-old human brain has been through a lot.

It may look like nothing more than a bit of burnt log, but it is one of the oldest brains ever found. Its discovery, and the story now being pieced together of its owner's last hours, offers the tantalising prospect that archaeological remains could harbour more ancient brain specimens than thought. If that's the case, it potentially opens the way to studying the health of the brain in prehistoric times.

Brain tissue is rich in enzymes that cause cells to break down rapidly after death, but this process can be halted if conditions are right. For instance, brain tissue has been found in the perfectly preserved body of an Inca child sacrificed 500 years ago. In this case, death occurred at the top of an Andean mountain where the body swiftly froze, preserving the brain.

However, Seyitömer Höyük - the Bronze Age settlement in western Turkey where this brain was found - is not in the mountains. So how did brain tissue survive in four skeletons dug up there between 2006 and 2011?

Meriç Altinoz at Haliç University in Istanbul, Turkey, who together with colleagues has been analysing the find, says the clues are in the ground. The skeletons were found burnt in a layer of sediment that also contained charred wooden objects. Given that the region is tectonically active, Altinoz speculates that an earthquake flattened the settlement and buried the people before fire spread through the rubble.
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Comet 2

Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) - Update

Nick Howes, Ernesto Guido and Martino Nicolini
Remanzacco Observatoery
Wed, 02 Oct 2013 13:50 UTC
We obtained further follow-up on C/2012 S1 (ISON) on 2013, Oct. 1.2, through the 2.0-m f/10.0 Ritchey-Chretien + CCD + SDSS r' Filter of Liverpool Telescope (MPC code J13).

Stacking of 20 exposures, 11-seconds each, produced an image where is visible a well developed coma and tail measuring at least 3 arcmin extended toward PA 297 deg. Click on the image for a bigger version.
ISON_1
© Remanzacco Observatory
Below another elaboration of the same stacking. Click on it for a bigger version.
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Telescope

Cassiopeia and Perseus in northeast on autumn evenings


EarthSky.org
Wed, 02 Oct 2013 12:54 UTC
At this time of year, if you're in the Northern Hemisphere, try looking northeast this evening for two prominent constellations, Cassiopeia and Perseus.

The easier to see will be Cassiopeia, which has a distinctive M or W shape, depending on what time of night you see it. This constellation represents a queen in ancient mythology. Cassiopeia is easy to identify and so it is one of the most famous constellations in the sky. You'll see it in the northeast this evening, and higher up in the evening sky in late autumn and winter.
Image
Perseus the Hero follows Cassiopeia the Queen across the night sky. As night passes, you'll see them both ascending in the northeast - then arcing high in the north - then descending in the northwest - with Perseus following Cassiopeia all the while. Perseus is fainter than Cassiopeia and its stars are not so easy to identify. But if you have a dark sky - like in the wee hours before dawn tomorrow - you'll spot its graceful shape. The evening sky will be free of the moon, starting the second week of November 2013.
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Telescope

He's got the bunker built, now Bill Gates helps to build the world's biggest digital telescope

Rory Carroll
The Guardian
Sat, 05 Jan 2008 06:29 UTC
Image
Billionaire and former colleague donate $30m for telescope that can provide early warning of asteroid crash

In the daytime the view from Cerro Pachon, a rocky, desolate peak high above Chile, offers a breathtaking vista of the Andes. Mountains of rock topped with snow and glaciers seem to touch the heavens.

Come nightfall, the Andes disappear into gloom and then the real show begins. As if someone had flicked a switch, the gleam of millions of planets and stars studs the inky blackness overhead.

The sky seems too immense to absorb, even for giant telescopes. They focus on one tiny portion at a time, pinpricks in the cosmos, because traditionally astronomers like to dwell on detail.

Not any more. Cerro Pachon is to host the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, a near $400m (£203m) project that will survey the entire sky several times a week - something never done before. Every 15 seconds it will take an image seven times the diameter of the moon, adding up, every three days, to a full panorama of the heavens. Boasting 3,200 megapixels, it will be the world's biggest digital camera.

Comment: Gates built his bunker and now he's helping build the world's largest telescope to look for earth impacting asteroids. If it wasn't clear that Bill Gates and the rest of the Majesterium are "in the know" about cometary cycles, then this should settle the matter.

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Blackbox

Strange super-Earth planet has 'plasma' water atmosphere

Nola Taylor Redd
SPACE.com
Wed, 02 Oct 2013 09:26 UTC
Image
Artist's rendition
A nearby alien planet six times the size of the Earth is covered with a water-rich atmosphere that includes a strange "plasma form" of water, scientists say. Astronomers have determined that the atmosphere of super-Earth Gliese 1214 b is likely water-rich. However, this
exoplanet is no Earth twin. The high temperature and density of the planet give it an atmosphere that differs dramatically from Earth.

"As the temperature and pressure are so high, water is not in a usual form (vapor, liquid, or solid), but in an ionic or plasma form at the bottom the atmosphere - namely the interior - of Gliese 1214 b," principle investigator Norio Narita of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan told SPACE.com by email. [The Strangest Alien Planets (Gallery)]

Using two instruments on the Subaru Telescope in Mauna Kea, Hawaii, scientists studied the scattering of light from the planet. Combining their results with previous observations led the astronomers to conclude that the atmosphere contained significant amounts of water.
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Sun

Sun's galactic journey linked to mass extinctions

Stuart Gary
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Tue, 01 Oct 2013 22:53 UTC
Galactic Journey
© Fredrik/WikiMedia"You're more likely to have a collision when you're in a galactic arm and the increased density sends a comet towards Earth".
The timing of some major extinction events on Earth coincides with the solar system's journey through Milky Way's spiral arms, suggests a new study. The research, published on the pre-press website ArXiv.org, supports the idea that mass extinction events were not always random.

The Sun spends 50 to 60 per cent of its 220-million-year journey around the galaxy passing through its spiral arms, says study co-author Dr Jonti Horner of the University of New South Wales.

"These are regions of higher than average density, where there are more stars and molecular gas and dust clouds," says Horner.

"It could be argued that the increase in the number of stars encountered as the Sun moves through a galactic arm, can trigger gravitational perturbations, sending comets from the Oort cloud towards the inner solar system, where the Earth is."

The Oort cloud is a hypothetical reservoir of comets and other icy bodies half way to the Sun's nearest stellar neighbour. Together with vast volcanic outpourings of flood basalt magmas, such as the Deccan and Siberian Traps, and snowball Earth periods of global glaciation, asteroid or cometary impacts are considered a likely cause of mass extinction events on Earth.

According to Horner, the Earth impact database currently lists 182 large craters caused by asteroid and comet collisions, and these only represent a tiny fraction of Earth's true impact history, the rest being erased by weathering and geological events.

He says the far more heavily scarred lunar surface, provides a better indication of the true level of major impact events.
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V

McAfee reveals $100 device to foil NSA spying and make Internet 'hack-proof'

Liz Klimas
The Blaze
Mon, 30 Sep 2013 20:14 UTC
Image
© YouTubeJohn McAfee speaks at C2SV Technology Conference + Music Festival.
A security company mogul revealed an idea for a device that would help users thwart online surveillance, like that conducted by the National Security Agency, and also make the Internet "hack-proof."

John McAfee, founder of McAfee Inc., sat in cargo pants, a black hoodie and Nikes at the C2SV Technology Conference + Music Festival in San Jose over the weekend, talking about a pocket-size device that would cost less than $100. He said it would create a mobile, encrypted network that makes it impossible to tell "who is doing what, when or where."

McAfee said he has been thinking about the product called D-Central made through his new company Future Tense Central for years.

"I can't get out of security," he said. "For some reason, it's part of my brain, part of my thinking. And we don't have much anymore, certainly not in the online world.

"The NSA helped create every single encryption algorithm that we use," McAfee alleged, "therefore, they can get access to whatever they want."

The way McAfee explained it, the D-Central hardware device and app would not only protect against spying from government agencies but hackers as well.

"We live in a very insecure world with a very insecure communication platform," he continued.
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Info

A new programming language to build synthetic DNA - University of Washington students

Chesa Castro
Pentagon Post
Tue, 01 Oct 2013 13:14 UTC
Programming Language
© Pentagon PostUW engineers build programming language to build synthetic DNA.
Just like the programs which are written in a computer, the human DNA also works in the same way creating proteins on the basis of its codes.

Chemists will be able to make the DNA work according to their wish by using a set of codes or instructions to program the DNA accordingly. Scientists will be able to make the DNA interact or work in a test tube.

A crack team of researchers from the University of Washington are trying to perfect a programming language which can guide the outcome or the mechanism of chemical reaction mixtures somewhat akin to the way programming in an electronic chip guide the automobiles, robots, aircrafts etc.

Such a system will have immense use in medicine where for the first time a dosage regimen can be programmed based on different symptom parameters.

The finding was published online this week in Nature Nanotechnology.
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