Science & TechnologyS


Robot

Pressure sensitive electronic whiskers developed to help robots navigate

Benita Matilda
Science World
Wed, 22 Jan 2014 08:05 UTC
Electronic whiskers
© Berkeley LabPressure sensitive electronic whiskers developed to help robots navigate

Using composite film of carbon nanotubes and silver nanoparticles, a team of international researchers has created tactile sensors that are similar to the sensitive whiskers of cats and rats. These e-whiskers can respond to changes in pressure.

In a breakthrough experiment, researchers at Berkeley Lab and the University of California (UC) developed electronic whiskers that respond to changes in pressure. These whiskers could help robots see and feel their environment.

For certain animals and insects, whiskers are important tactile sensors that help in navigating around enclosed area. But the new e-whiskers, the elastic fiber layered with nanotubes and nanoparticles are almost 10 times more sensitive to the pressure than other pressure sensors.

To develop the e-whisker, the researchers used carbon nanotube paste and formed a bendable conductive network. They then loaded a thin film of silver nanoparticles to the carbon nanotube that made the whiskers sensitive to mechanical strain.
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Magnify

Viewing X chromosomes in a new light

Carl Zimmer
New York Times
Mon, 20 Jan 2014 08:00 UTC
mouse brain
© Hao Wu and Jeremy Nathans/Cell PressIn a female mouse’s brain, a left-to-right pattern in the silencing of the X chromosome. These patterns may influence how individual brains function
The term "X chromosome" has an air of mystery to it, and rightly so. It got its name in 1891 from a baffled biologist named Hermann Henking. To investigate the nature of chromosomes, Henking examined cells under a simple microscope. All the chromosomes in the cells came in pairs.

All except one.

Henking labeled this outlier chromosome the "X element." No one knows for sure what he meant by the letter. Maybe he saw it as an extra chromosome. Or perhaps he thought it was an ex-chromosome. Maybe he used X the way mathematicians do, to refer to something unknown.

Today, scientists know the X chromosome much better. It's part of the system that determines whether we become male or female. If an egg inherits an X chromosome from both parents, it becomes female. If it gets an X from its mother and a Y from its father, it becomes male.

But the X chromosome remains mysterious. For one thing, females shut down an X chromosome in every cell, leaving only one active. That's a drastic step to take, given that the X chromosome has more than 1,000 genes.

Comment: Also see: Physicist cracks women's random but always lucky choice of X chromosome

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Ice Cube

Manipulation of climate data shows the US gov. scientists turned a "90 year cooling trend into a warming trend"

John O'Sullivan
Principia Scientific International
Sun, 19 Jan 2014 16:46 UTC
Image

A newly-uncovered and monumental calculating error in official US government climate data shows beyond doubt that climate scientists unjustifiably added on a whopping one degree of phantom warming to the official "raw" temperature record. Skeptics believe the discovery may trigger the biggest of all "climate con" scandals in Congress and sound the death knell on American climate policy.

Independent data analyst, Steven Goddard, today (January 19, 2014) released his telling study of the officially adjusted and "homogenized" US temperature records relied upon by NASA, NOAA, USHCN and scientists around the world to "prove" our climate has been warming dangerously.

Goddard reports, "I spent the evening comparing graphs...and hit the NOAA motherlode." His diligent research exposed the real reason why there is a startling disparity between the "raw" thermometer readings, as reported by measuring stations, and the "adjusted" temperatures, those that appear in official charts and government reports. In effect, the adjustments to the "raw" thermometer measurements made by the climate scientists "turns a 90 year cooling trend into a warming trend," says the astonished Goddard.
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TV

Botnet made up of hacked refrigerators and other household appliances sends 750k malicious emails


The Age
Mon, 20 Jan 2014 16:57 UTC
fridge phone
© AFPAt least one refrigerator was used to create a botnet that sent spam.
Call it the attack of the zombie refrigerators.

Computer security researchers say they have discovered a large "botnet" which infected internet-connected home appliances and then delivered more than 750,000 malicious emails.

The California security firm Proofpoint, which announced its findings, said this may be the first proven "internet of things" based cyber attack involving "smart" appliances.

Proofpoint said hackers managed to penetrate home-networking routers, connected multimedia centres, televisions and at least one refrigerator to create a botnet - or platform to deliver malicious spam or phishing emails from a device, usually without the owner's knowledge.
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Snowflake Cold

Ship of fools: 'Spirit of Mawson' Antarctic fiasco leader Chris Turney gets award for 'scientific excellence'

Anthony Watts
What's up with that?
Tue, 21 Jan 2014 15:59 UTC
Image
© RocketNewsProfessor Chris Turney
The Australian Academy of Science has announced their 2014 Honorific Awards for Scientific Excellence.

The description reads:

Academy Medal: for contributions to science by means other than the conduct of scientific research. Hmmm, that actually seems appropriate, since his tourist affair hardly seemed like "scientific research" Here's the bio on Turney in the awards section:
Professor Chris Turney
School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences
University of New South Wales

Professor Turney is an internationally recognised earth scientist and research leader in both climate and environmental change, from the tropics to the poles. By pioneering new ways of combining climate models with records of past climate change (spanning from hundreds to thousands of years), he has discovered new links between variability mechanisms in the Australian region and global climate change.
Source: http://www.science.org.au/awards/awardees/2014awards.html

I wonder if the award was decided before his Antarctic fiasco or if AAS simply has glossed over the recent incompetence?

Hat tip to Jo Nova

Comment: For more on Turney's 'excellence' see:

Risking lives to promote climate change hype
Damning French analysis of Turney's expedition: Debacle was caused more by "An obvious amateurism"
Hilarious: Akademic Shokalskiy makes it back to port, #spiritofmawson ship of fools still stuck in Antarctica

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Info

Matter of Mystery: Antimatter beam could help solve physics puzzle

Tia Ghose
LiveScience
Tue, 21 Jan 2014 14:20 UTC
Antiproton Decelerator
© N. KurodaEquipment in the Antiproton Decelerator at CERN.
A new experiment at a Swiss physics laboratory has successfully produced a stream of antimatter hydrogen atoms.

The new achievement, which is detailed today (Jan. 21) in the journal Nature Communications, brings scientists a step closer to understanding why humans, stars and the universe are made of matter, rather than of its strange cousin, antimatter.

"It's one of the fundamental questions of physics: We just don't know why we exist," said study co-author Stefan Ulmer, a physicist at science research institute RIKEN in Japan.

The new demonstration will allow for more precise measurements that could then start to answer that question.
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Robot

Space droids battle to save our planet


RedOrbit
Tue, 21 Jan 2014 12:08 UTC
Robots
© ESA The 2013 Spheres competition trophy backdropped by replicas of the Spheres. The ultimate robot game challenges youngsters to write algorithms to control Spheres, short for Synchronised Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites. Spheres are volleyball-sized satellites that hover around the International Space Station using 12 jets powered by compressed gas. These autonomous robots have their own power, propulsion and navigation.
A comet heading towards Earth threatens humanity's existence - that was the virtual scenario of this year's Zero Robotics tournament. Secondary-school students from across Europe controlled miniature satellites on the International Space Station in a competition to save our planet.

The Space Station was turned into a playing field for the finals. The ultimate robot game challenged youngsters to write algorithms that controlled the Spheres, short for Synchronised Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites.

The Spheres are volleyball-sized satellites that hover around the Station using 12 jets powered by compressed gas. These autonomous robots have their own power, propulsion and navigation.

Last Friday was the fourth time European contenders ran their commands in space, and each year the competition has grown. Over 140 European students joined the US competitors, writing code to redirect an incoming comet while taking space debris and limited laser resources into account.

European finalists met at the ESA Technical Centre in the Netherlands to follow the competition live from space. The US teams were connected at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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Question

Mars mystery rock analysis shows unusual composition following sudden appearance

Brittany Hillen
Slash Gear
Mon, 20 Jan 2014 14:52 UTC
Mars Mystery Rock
© NASA
The NASA rover Opportunity sent back a couple of surprising images from Mars last week, both of which were taken with its Pancam, revealing the rather sudden appearance of a small rock. Researchers were surprised at the quick change, and though they offered a couple possible explanations, an investigation was kicked off to try and determine how it happened. Fast-forward through the weekend, and an analysis has offered a new surprise: the chemical composition is unlike anything previously analyzed on the Red Planet.

There is said to be a time span of a little under two weeks between the time the first picture -- on the left -- and the second picture were taken, the second including a small rock described as about the size of a jelly doughnut. A couple possibilities for the rock's appearance were put forth, among them being the accidental flinging of the rock by the rover due to a damaged front actuator or debris that landed there from nearby.
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Meteor

Penny finally drops for mainstream astronomy: 'Mars moon Phobos may be a captured asteroid'

Nola Taylor Redd
Space.com
Mon, 20 Jan 2014 06:51 UTC
Image
One of these is 'asteroid' Vesta... the other is 'moon' Phobos. Not easy to tell them apart, is it?
The origin of the two small moons of Mars, called Phobos and Deimos, have been shrouded in mystery since their discovery in 1877. The surface of the moons and their orbits hint at different origins. But new models provide stronger suggestions that Phobos, at least, may be a captured asteroid.

An international team of astronomers modeled the ultraviolet light reflected from the surface of Phobos and compared it to the asteroid 624 Hektor and the Tagish Lake meteorite found on Earth. They found that it bore strong similarities to both.

"This provided more additional support for compositional similarities between Phobos and D-type asteroids," primary investigator Maurizio Pajola of the University of Padova in Italy told SPACE.com by email.

Comment: FINALLY!

Now if they can just keep going until they realize that all space rocks are essentially the same - comets, asteroids, moons, meteors - just varied in size and electrical activity...

Solar system-wide 'climate change': Tally of Jupiter's moons goes up and down

NASA's Hubble sees 'asteroid' spouting six comet-like tails "dust radiating from it like spokes on a wheel"

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Display

U.S. security firm says Target, Neiman Marcus stores were hacked by BlackPOS malware designed by Russian teen

Beth Stebner
US Daily News
Sat, 18 Jan 2014 18:42 UTC
Security firm IntelCrawler posted that the teen sold the software responsible for breaching security at the retailers and affecting as many as 110 million Target customers alone.
Image
© IntelCrawlerA photo of the 17-year-old alleged Target credit card hacker, who has ties to St. Petersburg, Russia.
From Russia, with malware.

A 17-year-old Russian national from St. Petersburg was responsible for the malicious programing that allowed for data from Target and Neiman Marcus to be compromised, according to a California-based security firm.

IntelCrawler said in a blog post Friday that it identified the creator, who they said wasn't responsible for the security breaches of the two retailers, but rather sold the software to cybercriminals throughout Eastern Europe.
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