Science & TechnologyS


Galaxy

Astronomers recalculate when Andromeda galaxy will collide with the Milky Way


Sputnik
Sat, 09 Feb 2019 21:21 UTC
Andromeda Galaxy
© Pixabay/Skeeze
Earlier calculations suggested that even if humanity still inhabits the solar system at that time, it would be unlikely to survive it. However, more recent estimations offer a brighter outlook for humankind.

A group of astronomers has managed to calculate a more precise timing for the expected collision between our Milky Way galaxy and Andromeda - our closest galactic neighbour. Previously, scientists believed that it was bound to happen in 3.9 billion years, but the authors of the research, which was published in the Astrophysical Journal, tracked the movement of stars using the ESA's Gaia telescope and determined that in fact, the great collision will only take place in 4.5 billion years.

What is more, the authors of the paper predict that it will not be a "head-on" collision, but rather a "sideswipe", meaning it will not be too disruptive and devastating. And because the distance between stars in galaxies is still astronomically huge, our solar system has all the chances to remain untouched by the event.

However, prior to the collision with Andromeda, the Milky Way has to withstand something similar with the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) which is expected to happen in 2.5 billion years. While Andromeda is a bit larger than our galaxy, the LMC only has 1/80 the mass of the Milky Way. Still, the collision with the LMC will affect our galaxy, purportedly increasing the mass of the supermassive black hole at its centre and reshaping the Milky Way into a standard spiral galaxy.
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2 + 2 = 4

Study finds bees have brains for basic maths

Gosia Kaszubska
RMIT University
Thu, 07 Feb 2019 14:30 UTC
honeybee sunflower
Researchers have found bees can do basic mathematics, in a discovery that expands our understanding of the relationship between brain size and brain power.

Building on their finding that honeybees can understand the concept of zero, Australian and French researchers set out to test whether bees could perform arithmetic operations like addition and subtraction.

Solving maths problems requires a sophisticated level of cognition, involving the complex mental management of numbers, long-term rules and short term working memory.

The revelation that even the miniature brain of a honeybee can grasp basic mathematical operations has implications for the future development of Artificial Intelligence, particularly in improving rapid learning.
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Satellite

Russian satellite registers unknown physical phenomena in Earth's atmosphere


Sputnik International
Mon, 11 Feb 2019 01:48 UTC
Earth's atmosphere
© CCO
An ultraviolet telescope installed on the Russian satellite Lomonosov has registered light "explosions" in the planet's atmosphere, whose physical nature has not been explained so far, the director of the Research Institute of Nuclear Physics at the Russian State University said in an interview with Sputnik.

"With the help of the telescope, we have obtained even more important results than we expected. It looks like we have encountered new physical phenomena... We do not yet know their physical nature... For example, during Lomonosov's flight at an altitude of several dozen kilometres, we have registered several times a very powerful 'explosion' of light. But everything was clear underneath it, no storms, no clouds," Mikhail Panasyuk said.

Russian astronomic satellite Mikhailo Lomonosov of Moscow State University was launched to the Earth's orbit in 2016.

It was designed to observe transient phenomena in the upper atmosphere of the Earth as well as studying the radiation characteristics of the planet's magnetosphere and for basic cosmological research. Its weight is 625 kilograms.
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Info

Forget 3D printing - The 'replicator' is here

Davide Castelvecchi
Nature
Thu, 31 Jan 2019 02:31 UTC
The Thinker
© Getty ImagesA new 3D printing technique can replicate complex structures—such as Rodin’s famous sculpture, "The Thinker,” seen here—using projections of light into a special resin.
They nicknamed it 'the replicator' - in homage to the machines in the Star Trek saga that can materialize virtually any inanimate object.

Researchers in California have unveiled a 3D printer that creates an entire object at once, rather than building it layer by layer as typical additive-manufacturing devices do - bringing science-fiction a step closer to reality.

"This is an exciting advancement to rapidly prototype fairly small and transparent parts," says Joseph DeSimone, a chemist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The device, described on 31 January in Science1, works like a computed tomography (CT) scan in reverse, explains Hayden Taylor, an electrical engineer at the University of California, Berkeley, who was part of the team that devised the replicator.

In CT machines, an X-ray tube rotates around the patient, taking multiple images of the body's innards. Then, a computer uses the projections to reconstruct a 3D picture.
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Rocket

Iran showcases a massive underground missile factory, new rockets, warheads


RT
Sat, 09 Feb 2019 18:49 UTC
Dezful ballistic missile
© AFP/Iran's Revolutionary Guard via Sepah NewsDezful ballistic missile on display.
As Tehran unveiled its newest weapon, it also shared rare footage of a secretive underground complex where Iranian missiles are being built. It has vowed to carry on with its missile program, despite objections from the West.

Iran's new missile was showcased on Thursday, with top military officials unveiling the weapon and, in an unprecedented move, showing the subterranean factory. The location of the facility was not disclosed, for obvious reasons.

The facility was described by the Iranian media as an "underground city" - and its scale appears to be quite impressive. Footage from the scene shows vast corridors, full of various missile parts, including warheads, all at different stages of assembly.

The videos also showed workers at the plant fulfilling tasks, from merely spinning nuts to fine-tuning some tiny electronic devices, thought to be parts of the missiles' guidance system.

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Moon

'This time we will stay': NASA wants to send more astronauts to the moon

Ajay Nair
Sky News
Sun, 10 Feb 2019 17:24 UTC
moonwalk
Buzz Aldrin was the second man to walk on the moon.
NASA is planning to take the "next giant leap in deep space exploration" as it looks to send astronauts to the moon who are able to stay there.

The space agency's administrator, Jim Bridenstine, called for American firms to help develop human lunar landers - "reusable systems for astronauts to land on the moon" - as he said scientists had been given a mandate by President Donald Trump and Congress to return to the moon for the first time since 1972.

He said NASA was planning to send astronauts "to the moon and eventually to Mars and beyond" and that it was "an exciting time to be leading America's space programme".

"As a lifelong NASA supporter, I am thrilled to be talking once again about landing humans on the moon," he said, writing in online magazine OZY. "But to some, saying we're returning to the moon implies we'll be doing the same as we did 50 years ago.
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Info

New type of magnet discovered by scientist


New York University
Thu, 07 Feb 2019 05:16 UTC
New Magnet
© alphaspirit/Getty ImagesA team of scientists has discovered the first robust example of a new type of magnet—one that holds promise for enhancing the performance of data storage technologies.
A team of scientists has discovered the first robust example of a new type of magnet-one that holds promise for enhancing the performance of data storage technologies.

This "singlet-based" magnet differs from conventional magnets, in which small magnetic constituents align with one another to create a strong magnetic field. By contrast, the newly uncovered singlet-based magnet has fields that pop in and out of existence, resulting in an unstable force-but also one that potentially has more flexibility than conventional counterparts.

"There's a great deal of research these days into the use of magnets and magnetism to improve data storage technologies," explains Andrew Wray, an assistant professor of physics at New York University, who led the research team. "Singlet-based magnets should have a more sudden transition between magnetic and non-magnetic phases. You don't need to do as much to get the material to flip between non-magnetic and strongly magnetic states, which could be beneficial for power consumption and switching speed inside a computer.
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Butterfly

Responding to the first negative review of "Darwin Devolves"

Michael Behe
Evolution News
Thu, 07 Feb 2019 20:18 UTC
Richard Lenski
© Zachary Blount [CC BY-SA 4.0], from Wikimedia CommonsRichard Lenski
Science has just published a review of Darwin Devolves, more than two weeks before the book's official release date. (I suppose they wanted to be the first on the block to take a shot at it.) Let me first say this - Woo-hoo!! I'm simply ecstatic about the review. Not because it's favorable - it surely isn't. But because it is so embarrassingly, cringe-inducingly weak. It's the equivalent of a reviewer being rendered speechless, but soldiering on because he's been assigned to write 700 words - gotta say something. And it's co-authored by no less than Richard Lenski, member of the National Academy of Sciences and world-renowned investigator behind the 60,000-generation long-term evolution experiment (LTEE), to which I devoted most of Chapter 7!

The Overwhelmingly Important Point

In a few days I will offer a detailed rebuttal. But the overwhelmingly important point to notice right up front is that the reviewers (Lenski plus Josh Swamidass over at Peaceful Science and John Jay College biologist Nathan Lents) have absolutely no response to the very central argument of the book. The argument that I summarized as an epigraph on the first page of the book so no one could miss it. The one that I included in the title of a 2010 Quarterly Review of Biology article upon which the book is based. The one for which I chose the most in-your-face moniker that I could think of (consistent with the professional literature) to goad a response: The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution: Break or blunt any gene whose loss would increase the number of offspring. The rule summarizes the fact that the overwhelming tendency of random mutation is to degrade genes, and that very often is helpful. Thus natural selection itself acts as a powerful de-volutionary force, increasing helpful broken and degraded genes in the population.

And they had no response! That's because there is in fact nothing that can alleviate that fatal flaw in Darwinism. Much more to come soon.

Comment: Brian Miller adds the following:
... I could not resist pointing out the extent to which the authors rely on circular reasoning. They [Lenski et al.] write:
Missing from Behe's discussion is any mention of exaptation, the process by which nature retools structures for new function and possibly the most common mechanism that leads to the false impression of irreducible complexity...The feathers of birds, gas bladders of fish, and ossicles of mammals have similar exaptive origins...The evolutionary ancestors of whales lost their ability to walk on land as their front limbs evolved into flippers, for example, but flippers proved advantageous in the long run...and developmental innovations in all metazoans through the diversification of HOX genes.
The authors argue that many of the traits found in life give evidence that they are the product of evolutionary processes having dramatically altered ancestral precursors. How do the authors come to this conclusion? First, they assume that all biological features are the result of undirected processes transforming features in ancestral organisms. Second, they identify some remarkable trait in life, such as the auditory ossicles in mammals. Then, they explain its origin through evolution without providing any substantive details. Finally, they use the "fact" that evolution formed the new trait as evidence for its unlimited creative power.

This line of argumentation only appears compelling to those who assume from that start that the core assumptions of the standard evolutionary model are true.
See also:

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Cell Phone

Behavior-Based Authentication: Smartphones will monitor how workers walk, type and "Spend their free time"

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Fri, 08 Feb 2019 00:00 UTC
Cell phone privacy
Forget Face ID: a collaboration between the Defense Department and a NY-based company called TWOSENSE.AI, has birthed an artificial intelligence algorithm that could be embedded in smartphones and will be able to identify the device owner by the way they talk, type, walk and even by how "they spend their free time".

TWOSENSE.AI is working with the Department of Defense to build a SaaS product that could eventually replace access cards currently used to verify the identities of DOD employees when logging onto the department's networks.

The AI constantly monitors the user's behavior, including how they carry the device, type on it and even walk. The system then automatically verifies the user's identity using these parameters, enabling them to work seamlessly on their secure network without having to login each time.

Comment: See also:

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Gear

Railway section of cross-border bridge linking Russia & China to be ready in March 2019


RT
Fri, 08 Feb 2019 00:00 UTC
Amur River
© Sputnik / I. NosovAmur River
Construction of the final deck for the railroad bridge over the Amur River to the Chinese city of Tongjiang will be finished next month, according to the government of Russia's Jewish Autonomous Region.

It will be part of the long-awaited infrastructure, which is aimed at connecting Russia's Far East with China's northernmost Heilongjiang province.

The 2,209-meter-long Nizhneleninskoe (Jewish Autonomous Region) to Tongjiang (Heilongjiang province) bridge will become the first railway bridge between the two countries. China has already completed the construction of its part of the bridge.

Comment: See also:

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