Science & Technology

Water, water everywhere: Evidence from lunar missions finds water is widely distributed across the moon's surface

RT
Sun, 25 Feb 2018 08:26 UTC

Water on the moon is widespread across its surface and appears to be present at all times of the lunar day, according to a new analysis of two lunar missions.

The new evidence contradicts previous research suggesting water was confined to certain areas and depended on lunar days. "We find that it doesn't matter what time of day or which latitude we look at, the signal indicating water always seems to be present," said Joshua Bandfield, a senior research scientist with the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and lead author of a new study published in Nature Geoscience.

"The presence of water doesn't appear to depend on the composition of the surface, and the water sticks around," he added. It's hoped the results will lead to a greater understanding of the origins of the moon's water and offer insight into how it could be used as a resource.

Comment: Scientists now think a deep reservoir of water exists beneath the moon's surface that could help support a colony

The chimera is real: Scientists just made sheep-human hybrids

Peter Dockrill
sciencealert.com
Mon, 19 Feb 2018 14:56 UTC

Researchers have achieved a new kind of chimeric first, producing sheep-human hybrid embryos that could one day represent the future of organ donation - by using body parts grown inside unnatural, engineered animals.

With that end goal in mind, scientists have created the first interspecies sheep-human chimera, introducing human stem cells into sheep embryos, resulting in a hybrid creature that's more than 99 percent sheep - but also a tiny, little bit like you and me.

Admittedly, the human portion of the embryos created in the experiment - before they were destroyed after 28 days - is exceedingly small, but the fact it exists at all is what generates considerable controversy in this field of research.

Comment: Scientists working on making actual 'sheeple' so they can harvest human organs from sheep

To create a part-human, part-animal embryo, the researchers use a gene-editing technique. First, they deleted genes needed for developing a certain organ in an animal embryo, then they injected human stem cells, which can become any cell in the body and are supposed to fill the void. In 2010, the Japanese scientists were the first to use this method to create a mouse and rat chimera, where the rat cells were introduced into a mouse to form a missing pancreas.

Helix structure discovered in tail of human sperm (PHOTO)

Mike Mcrae
Science Alert
Wed, 21 Feb 2018 12:12 UTC

How have we never seen this?

The sperm's tail is perhaps one of the most iconic structures among all of the cells in the human body, so it's odd to think there are still some things we don't know about it.

It turns out there is a weird kind of helix right at the very tip of the tail nobody has noticed before. The researchers responsible for the discovery are yet to work out what it does, but figuring it out could help us understand why some sperm are better swimmers than others.

Researchers from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden and the University of Colorado used an imaging trick that combines electron microscopy with the 'slice-by-slice' action of CT scans.

Comment: While its true purpose remains to be known, it is a fascinating discovery when we consider how prevalent the helix structure is in nature:

Thinking outside the box of quantum physics: How the mind can make sense of the quantum quagmire in more ways than one

Bernardo Kastrup
Scientific American
Fri, 16 Feb 2018 00:00 UTC

The counterintuitive predictions of quantum theory have now been experimentally confirmed with unprecedented rigor. Yet, the question of how to interpret the meaning of these predictions remains controversial. A Wikipedia table summarizing different interpretations of quantum mechanics included no less than fourteen entries at the time of this writing. New interpretations regularly appear.

The problem is that quantum theory contradicts our intuitive understanding of what "real" means. According to the theory, if two real particles A and B are prepared in a special way, what Alice sees when she observes particle A depends on how Bob concurrently observes particle B, even if the particles - as well as Alice and Bob - are separated by an arbitrary distance. This "spooky action at a distance," as Einstein called it, contradicts either local causation or the very notion that particles A and B are "real," in the sense of existing independently of observation. As it turns out, certain statistical properties of the observations, which have been experimentally confirmed, indicate the latter: that the particles do not exist independently of observation. And since observation ultimately consists of what is apprehended on the mental screen of perception, the implication may be that "the Universe is entirely mental," as put by Richard Conn Henry in his 2005 Nature essay.

Any contact with ETs could cause chaos for life on Earth

Andrew Griffin
Independent
Wed, 14 Feb 2018 12:58 UTC

Messages sent by aliens from space could destroy life as we know it on Earth if we're not careful about how we read them, scientists have warned.

A new paper explores how we might read and understand a message that came to us from space. And it finds that it would be impossible to know that a message was dangerous before we opened it.

In fact, the messages are so dangerous that it would be safest to simply discard them without ever reading them, scientists have warned.

It's unlikely that any alien civilisation we came into contact with would be harmful, researchers Michael Hippke and John G. Learned write in a new study posted on arXiv.org. But since it's impossible to know what the message would say before we read it, the safest scenario would be to avoid doing so entirely.

Comment: Considering reports of the UFO/alien phenomena, it's actually quite likely they don't have our best interests at heart: Karla Turner - UFO & Military Abductions - 1994 Lecture

Comment: See:

Also check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: Hyperdimensional Planet Earth - Are human beings really at the top of the food chain?

New trojan malware could mind-control neural networks

Chris Mahon
Outer Places
Fri, 23 Feb 2018 10:47 UTC

Each new technological breakthrough comes seemingly prepackaged with a new way for hackers to kill us all: self-driving cars, space-based weapons, and even nuclear security systems are vulnerable to someone with the right knowledge and a bit of code. Now, deep-learning artificial intelligence looks like the next big threat, and not because it will gain sentience to murder us with robots (as Elon Musk has warned): a group of computer scientists from the US and China recently published a paper proposing the first-ever trojan for a neural network.

Neural networks are the primary tool used in AI to accomplish "deep learning," which has allowed AIs to master complex tasks like playing chess and Go. Neural networks function similar to a human brain, which is how they got the name. Information passes through layers of neuron-like connections, which then analyze the information and spit out a response.

These networks can pull off difficult tasks like image recognition, including identifying faces and objects, which makes them useful for self-driving cars (to identify stop signs and pedestrians) and security (which may involve identifying an authorized user's face). Neural networks are relatively novel pieces of tech and aren't commonly used by the public yet but, as deep-learning AI becomes more prevalent, it will likely become an appealing target for hackers.

Some types of black holes erase your past

Anthony Watts
Watts Up With That?
Thu, 22 Feb 2018 21:47 UTC

From the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - BERKELEY

Einstein's equations allow a non-determinist future inside some black holes

In the real world, your past uniquely determines your future. If a physicist knows how the universe starts out, she can calculate its future for all time and all space.

But a UC Berkeley mathematician has found some types of black holes in which this law breaks down. If someone were to venture into one of these relatively benign black holes, they could survive, but their past would be obliterated and they could have an infinite number of possible futures.

Comment: See also:

Are computer algorithms better than people at pre-crime prediction?

Maria Temming
Science News
Tue, 20 Feb 2018 19:59 UTC

© Billion Photos/Shutterstock
When it comes to predicting whether or not someone will commit another crime — which can affect lockup time — computer programs don’t have an edge over people.

In courtrooms around the United States, computer programs give testimony that helps decide who gets locked up and who walks free.

These algorithms are criminal recidivism predictors, which use personal information about defendants - like family and employment history - to assess that person's likelihood of committing future crimes. Judges factor those risk ratings into verdicts on everything from bail to sentencing to parole.

Computers get a say in these life-changing decisions because their crime forecasts are supposedly less biased and more accurate than human guesswork.

But investigations into algorithms' treatment of different demographics have revealed how machines perpetuate human prejudices. Now there's reason to doubt whether crime-prediction algorithms can even boast superhuman accuracy.

Comment: More on COMPAS:

Wild horses are EXTINCT: Domesticated breeds are now the only ones left on the planet, according to shock DNA study

Reuters and Joe Pinkstone
Daily Mail
Fri, 23 Feb 2018 15:45 UTC

Przewalski's horses were considered to be the last 'wild' species of horse but some of the horses were found to carry genetic variants causing white and leopard coat spotting patterns. This artists impression shows how the early horses may have looked

The last 'wild' horses is the world are not truly wild, according to a shock DNA study.

Przewalski's horses, a breed thought to be the last 'wild' species, are the descendants of escaped once-domesticated animals.

The research turns the mysterious origin of domesticated horses 'upside down', experts claim.

Przewalski's horses now number roughly 2,000 in Mongolia.

But researchers this week upended that theory on an examination of the genomes of dozens of ancient and modern horses.

'Our findings literally turn current population models of horse origins upside-down,' said Professor Ludovic Orlando, a molecular archaeologist at the French National Center for Scientific Research who led the study.

Not just meat: MycoWorks is growing leather in a lab - from mushrooms

Cecille De Jesus
futurism.com
Fri, 08 Dec 2017 12:45 UTC

Apart from Modern Meadow, a company that grows leather in the lab, another start-up is giving leather makers a run for their money. MycoWorks is using fungi to produce leather substitutes, through a process that's cheaper and faster.

MycoWorks' chief technical officer Phil Ross has been collecting and growing mushrooms since the 1980s. He discovered the vast possibilities resulting from manipulating the growing conditions of the mushroom mycelium-the spiderweb-like fibers that extend through soil or decaying matter to gather nutrients. "Fungi are very sensitive; they will change their growth in relationship to how they're being poked and things like that," Ross says. "You put it in a cup, it would take the shape of a cup."

Comment: For more interesting information about mushrooms and mycelium listen to the The Health & Wellness Show: Fungus Among Us

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Science & Technology

Water, water everywhere: Evidence from lunar missions finds water is widely distributed across the moon's surface

The chimera is real: Scientists just made sheep-human hybrids

Helix structure discovered in tail of human sperm (PHOTO)

Thinking outside the box of quantum physics: How the mind can make sense of the quantum quagmire in more ways than one

Any contact with ETs could cause chaos for life on Earth

New trojan malware could mind-control neural networks

Some types of black holes erase your past

Are computer algorithms better than people at pre-crime prediction?

Wild horses are EXTINCT: Domesticated breeds are now the only ones left on the planet, according to shock DNA study

Not just meat: MycoWorks is growing leather in a lab - from mushrooms

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