Science & Technology

Taurid comet debris may raise chances of impacts on Earth in June

Western University
Tue, 21 May 2019 03:12 UTC

A new study from Western University posits proof to the possibility that an oncoming swarm of meteors - likened to the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot by some extraterrestrial experts - may indeed pose an existential risk for Earth and its inhabitants. (That's us.)

When considering catalysts for catastrophic collision, there are two main sources Near Earth Objects (NEOs) like asteroids and meteoroids and interlopers from the outer solar system, which are typically comets. Over the past few decades, a great deal of effort has been expended in cataloguing more than 90 per cent of the potentially hazardous NEOs, and work is ongoing to detect, catalogue and track greater numbers and smaller sizes of these objects. Interlopers from the outer solar system are much harder to chart but again, much work is underway.

The Taurid swarm is a third potential source of risk that changes the probabilities of possible catastrophic impacts. The Tunguska (Russia) explosion of 1908 is considered a one-in-1000-year event, assuming a random distribution of events over time. But the Taurid swarm, a dense cluster within the Taurid meteoroid stream, and through which the Earth periodically passes, changes the odds significantly and gives a possible reason for the unlikely occurrence that a once per 1000-year event occurred just over a century ago. If the hypothesized might of the Taurid swarm is successfully proven, this also heightens the possibility of a cluster of large impacts over a short period of time.

Do tiny tremblors on the West Coast signal a major earthquake?

Don Sweeney
The Charlotte Observer
Fri, 24 May 2019 18:57 UTC

A series of tiny quakes rattling California and the Pacific Northwest may signal an upcoming catastrophic earthquake, seismologists say, KOIN reported.

Or experts say they might just be another reminder that the pressure's always building on fault lines beneath the West Coast, KATU reported.

"Those are just reminders," said Scott Burns, a Portland State University geology professor, according to the station. "We don't know what they mean. They are reminders that we are in earthquake country, and they may be precursors to the 'big one.'"

The tremors are indications of a "slow-slip" event, says Ken Creager, a University of Washington professor, KOMO reported.

In a slow-slip movement, which takes place every 14 months or so, a tectonic plate temporarily moves backward, causing a series of small quakes, KOIN reported.

Comment: San Andreas: A prepper's view of earthquake survival

Amazon reportedly has its eyes on a wearable device that can detect human emotions

Christopher Carbone
Fox News
Thu, 23 May 2019 18:20 UTC

A U.S. Patent Office diagram from Amazon.

Amazon is reportedly developing a voice-activated wearable device that can recognize human emotions.

The gadget, meant to be worn on a person's wrist, is reportedly a health and wellness product developed via a collaboration between Lab126 - which built Amazon's Echo smart speaker - and the Alexa software team.

According to internal documents obtained by Bloomberg and a person familiar with the matter, the device has microphones that can figure out a person's emotional state from the sound of his or her voice. The documents also apparently show how the technology could eventually assist the wearer in interacting more effectively with others.

A beta testing program is reportedly underway, but it's not clear whether the project, code-named Dylan, will ever become a commercial device or exactly how far along the project is in its development, reported Bloomberg.

India launches Risat-2b, 'cloud-proof' spy satellite, months after Balakot strike

Pallava Bagla
NDTV
Wed, 22 May 2019 09:14 UTC

India this morning successfully launched a new "spy satellite" capable of keeping a lookout from space even in cloudy conditions, leaving no room for doubt the next time its armed forces conduct an operation such as the Balakot air strike carried out earlier this year.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) used its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle to launch the 615-kg RISAT-2B satellite, capable of clear viewing during the day, night and even under adverse weather conditions, at 5:30 am on Wednesday. ISRO chief Dr K Sivan called the launch of RISAT-2B a "fantastic mission". The home-grown space agency has sent 354 satellites into orbit and crossed a landmark of lifting a total of over 50 tonne of material into the space.

Dr Sivan announced that RISAT-2B has "special imaging capabilities to take strips of images and mosaics of images". The launch also saw the use of made-in-India Vikram Processor for the first time, realised by the semiconductor complex at Chandigarh.

'Oumuamua was a fragment from a disintegrated comet

Monica Young
Sky&Telescope
Thu, 23 May 2019 22:12 UTC

'Oumuamua's strange trajectory back out to interstellar space can be explained if the object was a comet fragment with the density of air.

'1/'Oumuamua, the interstellar mystery object that briefly visited the inner solar system in 2018, has proven a difficult nut to crack. Astronomers are still arguing about what it even is - asteroid, comet, or something else altogether? Now, in a pair of studies posted recently on the arXiv (paper 1, paper 2), Zdenek Sekanina (JPL-Caltech) suggests the object might be an ultra-low density fragment from a comet that disintegrated while passing near the Sun.

Huawei says its own operating system could be ready this year if it can't use Google or Microsoft

Arjun Kharpal
CNBC
Wed, 22 May 2019 18:30 UTC

Huawei could have its own operating system for smartphones and laptops ready for use in China by fall this year, the head of the company's consumer division told CNBC.

Still, he stressed that would only happen if the company were completely stopped from using Google's and Microsoft's software.

The Chinese technology giant was placed on a U.S. blacklist that required American firms to get permission from the government before selling anything to Huawei. That meant Huawei would no longer be able to license the version of Google's Android operating system that's complete with all of the U.S. firm's services.

However, Washington granted a temporary 90-day reprieve for Huawei, which will allow it to continue using American technology - for now.

As Darwin's 'big idea' continues to lose ground, top evolutionists scramble for new approaches to failing theory

Dr. Marcos Eberlin
Evolution News
Thu, 23 May 2019 13:31 UTC

If you ask your typical garden variety evolutionist, he will tell you that all is well in the land of Darwinia. But if you look behind the right curtains, you find that some highly placed, mainstream evolutionary biologists concede that neo-Darwinism is in deep crisis. They acknowledge its imminent fall even as they cling to the hope that some purely blind, materialistic version of evolution can be cobbled together to replace it.

Such thinking was front and center at a recent University of Cambridge event, held April 1 to 4 on the campus of Churchill College. Entitled "Evolution Evolving," the meeting sought to encourage novel thinking about evolution, starting from the premise that existing textbook theory fails to explain many of the most interesting and important phenomena in biology.

A 2016 meeting of the Royal Society of London, which included many distinguished evolutionists, struck a similar note. Such recognition is significant, since no one bothers to look for a new theory if the one they already have is doing its job.

Comment:

New study confirms Libyan Desert Glass formed by airburst

Aaron J Cavosie
Real Clear Science
Thu, 23 May 2019 05:46 UTC

In the remote desert of western Egypt, near the Libyan border, lie clues to an ancient cosmic cataclysm.

Libyan desert glass is the name given to fragments of canary-yellow glass found scattered over hundreds of kilometres, between giant shifting sand dunes.

Interest in Libyan desert glass goes back more than 3,000 years. Among items recovered from King Tut's burial chamber is a gold and jewel-encrusted breastplate. In the centre sits a beautiful scarab beetle, carved from Libyan desert glass.

Libyan desert glass - raw and carved - is easily available today, but how the glass formed has long puzzled scientists.

Our research has found the answer.

Constants are neither fundamental nor constant says new paper

Yuen Yiu
Inside Science
Tue, 21 May 2019 19:19 UTC

Is it possible for light to travel faster or slower in the distant corners of our universe? The speed of light, like dozens of other so-called fundamental constants, is essential to how physicists understand the cosmos. These numbers even help define our units of measure, such as the meter, the second and, as of this Monday, the kilogram. However, there is no scientific consensus as for why the constants must be constant, or fundamental.

A new paper in the journal Physical Review Letters proposes experiments to investigate whether these unwavering pillars of physics are, in fact, fluctuating over space-time. If so, scientists will need to reevaluate the current models of our universe -- or at least give these numbers a different name.

How fundamental are the constants?

"Fundamental constants are essentially just parameters that appear in a theory," said Peter Mohr, a physicist from the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Maryland, who was not involved in the new paper. "They have fundamental importance to the theories, but their values are not predicted by the theories and have to be measured experimentally."

Mohr and his colleagues were part of the international effort to create a new definition for the kilogram -- one that is derived from fundamental constants rather than a block of platinum alloy that's been sitting in France since 1889. The goal was to create a standard for measuring mass that can withstand the test of time and not gain or lose weight through contaminations and degradations like a physical block of material would. The change took effect this Monday, May 20, on World Metrology Day.

It might seem like shifting fundamental constants would negate the whole premise of the redefinition.

But decades of experimental data have shown than any potential changes to the constants would be incredibly tiny -- less than one part in a hundred thousand trillion.

"That's pretty stable," said Mohr. "The variations -- even if they're there -- would be so small that we won't even have to think about them in most experiments."

Comment:

'Science Uprising': New video series will strip away materialist dogma and share the truths being uncovered by real science

David Klinghoffer
Evolution News
Mon, 20 May 2019 04:10 UTC

In our culture, the old have failed the young. Hate-driven shootings in schools and houses of worship, rising suicide and addiction rates - these are the most dramatic indications. But a quieter sense of numbness and despair, concealed in mindless social media and the omnipresent screens, is far more widespread.

What Lies Behind It All?

Questions about biological origins are NOT of merely scientific importance. These questions go to the heart of how we think about the value of individual human beings. Increasingly evident is the relationship between noxious racial theories, devaluing or demonizing whole classes of men and women, and the philosophy of scientific materialism.

As the news hammers home to us, young people are especially vulnerable to poisonous, Internet-mediated messages. That's one reason Discovery Institute has teamed up with a gifted cinematographer who wanted to create a new video series, Science Uprising, that would be relevant to viewers in their thirties and younger. The series will launch on June 3, with new episodes to be released weekly through July 8.

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Science & Technology

Taurid comet debris may raise chances of impacts on Earth in June

Do tiny tremblors on the West Coast signal a major earthquake?

Amazon reportedly has its eyes on a wearable device that can detect human emotions

India launches Risat-2b, 'cloud-proof' spy satellite, months after Balakot strike

'Oumuamua was a fragment from a disintegrated comet

Huawei says its own operating system could be ready this year if it can't use Google or Microsoft

As Darwin's 'big idea' continues to lose ground, top evolutionists scramble for new approaches to failing theory

New study confirms Libyan Desert Glass formed by airburst

Constants are neither fundamental nor constant says new paper

'Science Uprising': New video series will strip away materialist dogma and share the truths being uncovered by real science

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