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MASCOT probe lands on asteroid Ryugu, begins mission to unlock origins of universe


RT
Wed, 03 Oct 2018 20:47 UTC
MASCOT
© DLR
The shoebox-sized probe is the latest in the daring mission to the distant, and ancient, asteroid.
The Hayabusa2 mission has successfully landed its third probe on the surface of the Ryugu asteroid some 300 million kilometers from Earth, building upon the earlier successes of one of mankind's most daring feats to date.

The shoebox-sized French-German Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout, or MASCOT for short, separated from the Hayabusa2 (Japanese for 'falcon') 'mothership' to become the latest member of the bold mission which is attempting to unravel the mysteries of our origins and the beginning of the universe.

The 10kg (22-pound) device ejected at an altitude of 51 meters above the asteroid and descended in a freefall 'slower than an earthly pedestrian.' During this tense time, the team successfully tested the craft's camera and magnetometer.

"It could not have gone better," explained MASCOT project manager Tra-Mi Ho from the DLR Institute of Space Systems. "From the lander's telemetry, we were able to see that it separated from the mothercraft, and made contact with the asteroid surface approximately 20 minutes later."


Comment: See also: Japan's 'hopping rovers' land successfully, send first images of Ryugu asteroid

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Arrow Down

Not just psychological damage: Child abuse may scar our DNA at the molecular level


RT
Wed, 03 Oct 2018 10:42 UTC
child abuse dna scarring sperm

Scientists found that childhood abuse was linked with changes in DNA of victims' sperm
Child abuse may have an even more profound effect than just psychological damage, according to a new study. Abuse may actually 'scar' our DNA on the molecular level, leading to intergenerational damage.

"We already know there are a lot of behavioral mechanisms by which trauma has negative effects on the next generation," Harvard scientist Dr Andrea Roberts told The Independent.

"Trauma obviously really affects the behavior of people traumatized. It often makes them depressed, it gives them post-traumatic stress disorder, and those mental health conditions affect their parenting and affect the kids. This is another possible pathway."

Using sperm samples from a small set of 34 men, of which 22 had suffered some form of abuse as children, the new research from the University of British Columbia and Harvard University found 12 areas in the survivors' DNA that were affected by some 'molecular scarring.'

Comment: The field of epigenetics continues to bring new insights into how we are affected by our environment and may prove to be the mechanism by which the trauma-abuse cycle continues through the generations. How much of your personality is shaped by your own experience, and how much is actually inherited from your ancestors? Can anything be done about it?

See also:

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Cell Phone

Beautygate: Did Apple secretly add a 'beauty mode' to new iPhones that can't be turned off?

Cal Jeffrey
Techspot
Mon, 01 Oct 2018 17:05 UTC
beautygate
© Unbox Therapy

Selfie camera 'aggressively smooths' your skin, muting freckles and blemishes, but the feature cannot be turned off

WTF?! The iPhone XS and XS Max have been out for a little over a week now. Reviews of the new handsets have mostly been positive. However, users are beginning to notice something strange with the front-facing camera.

Lewis Hilsenteger of Unbox Therapy said he noticed that when he uses the front-facing selfie camera that the resulting image looks odd - like it has been touched up or airbrushed (video below). At first, he thought it might have been related to Apple's new "Smart HDR" technology. Unfortunately, after turning off Smart HDR in the settings the skin smoothing remained.

Several users on Reddit have noticed the same effect, and there does not appear to be any way to turn it off. Other phones and camera apps have a beauty mode built in, but users can either disable it or dial it all the way down using a slider. The iPhone XS and XS Max camera apps don't have any settings related to beautifying or skin smoothing to turn off or adjust.

Comment: This isn't really surprising. Apple has always dictated what their products do and how their users will engage with them. It's reminiscent of how dressing rooms in clothing stores would adjust the lighting to magnify how good one would look when trying on clothes. The difference is, this doesn't appear to be a sales strategy, more like a bubble applied to user's reality after the purchase has already been made.

See also:

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Galaxy

Science catches up with reality: Newly-discovered distant planet bolsters evidence for 'Planet X'

Mike Wall,
Space.com
Wed, 03 Oct 2018 08:24 UTC
dwarf planet nine
© Roberto Molar Candanosa and Scott Sheppard, courtesy of Carnegie Institution for Science
The orbits of the newfound extreme dwarf planet 2015 TG387 and its fellow Inner Oort Cloud objects 2012 VP113 and Sedna, as compared with the rest of the solar system.
Scientists have discovered yet another marker on the trail toward the putative Planet Nine.

That clue is 2015 TG387, a newfound object in the far outer solar system, way beyond Pluto. The orbit of 2015 TG387 shares peculiarities with those of other extremely far-flung bodies, which appear to have been shaped by the gravity of a very large object in that distant, frigid realm - the hypothesized Planet Nine, also known as Planet X.

"These distant objects are like breadcrumbs leading us to Planet X," study leader Scott Sheppard, of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C., said in a statement.

"The more of them we can find, the better we can understand the outer solar system and the possible planet that we think is shaping their orbits - a discovery that would redefine our knowledge of the solar system's evolution," he added.

And 2015 TG387 is special among these bread crumbs, because it was found during a relatively uniform survey of the northern and southern skies rather than a targeted hunt for clustered objects in certain parts of the sky, Sheppard said. Targeted hunts can produce biased results - for example, the appearance of clustering where none may actually exist, he explained.

Comment: For more on 'Planet' X, or Nemesis, see: Also check out SOTT radio's:


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Green Light

World's first 'Hyperloop' transport pod capable of traveling at over 700mph unveiled in Spain


RT
Wed, 03 Oct 2018 00:39 UTC
Hyperloop capsule
© Marcelo del Pozo / Reuters
The front of the world's first full-scale passenger Hyperloop capsule is seen during its presentation in Spain
The first full-size passenger capsule designed to carry passengers at over 1,100 kilometers per hour (700mph) was unveiled on Tuesday in Cadiz, Spain.

According to Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT), the vessel has been built to scale to transport passengers at super-fast speeds through magnetic tubes.

"Today we have unveiled a new type of transportation vessel built with an industry high percentage of composite, which makes the Hyperloop capsule perhaps the safest transportation vehicle in the world," said Rafael Contreras, the company's co-founder and chairman.

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Cassiopaea

Deep space astronauts at risk of having their guts destroyed

Mariella Moon
engadget
Tue, 02 Oct 2018 20:26 UTC
astronaut
© Getty Images
We can't send astronauts on deep space missions without knowing how the journey will affect the human body -- what's the point of sending them to Mars if they won't even make it to their destinations? That's why researchers have been looking into the effects of deep space travel on human spacefarers. A group of investigators at Georgetown University Medical Center, for instance, has recently discovered that when gastrointestinal tissues are bombarded by galactic cosmic radiation (GCR), their functions get altered. And if the way they function changes, astronauts could develop cancerous tumors in the stomach and colon.

GCR doesn't affect us here on Earth, because we're being protected by our planet's magnetosphere. We didn't evolve to be able take huge doses of it without that extra protection -- and no, current shielding technology can't block it out. The study's lead investigator, Kamal Datta, explained: "Heavy ions such as iron and silicon are damaging because of their greater mass compared to no-mass photons such as x-rays and gamma rays prevalent on Earth, as well as low mass protons in outer space."

Comment: Ruined guts aren't the only health problem astronauts face:

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USA

US military technological 'upgrades' means Uncle Sam just won't need soldiers as it used to

James Corbett
Steemit
Sat, 29 Sep 2018 00:00 UTC
uncle sam
OK, I've got some good news and some bad news. Which do you want first?

The good news? OK, no problem.

You know that old anti-war cliché about "Suppose They Gave A War And No One Came"? Well that slogan might be closer to becoming reality than you think.

Exhibit A: This story from Japan Today. "SDF recruiters struggle as applicant pool dries up."

You see, it seems that recruiters are having a tougher time than ever selling Japan's youth on the glitz and glamour of a career in the nation's "Self-Defense Force" (aka Japan's Stealth Army). The country's infamous plummeting birth rate has created a shortage of 18-26 year olds in the job market (11 million today compared to 17 million just 24 years ago), meaning that universities and corporations are viciously competing to recruit high school graduates. And that competition has left those struggling to sell teenagers on the benefits of joining the military in the dust.
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Nebula

Mystery particle: Impossible cosmic rays are shooting out of Antarctica

Robby Berman
Big Think
Sat, 29 Sep 2018 00:00 UTC
cosmic rays
No particle we know of can explain what's going on.

Meet ANITA. ANITA stands for "Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna." It seeks out cosmic rays from space as while hanging from a balloon suspended over Antarctica. In the last two years, though, it has twice detected cosmic rays coming from a direction no one expected: inside the earth. According to the Standard Model (SM) of physics, this shouldn't be possible.
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Brain

BrainNet: Scientists connect 3 peoples' brains to play a game of telepathic Tetris


RT
Tue, 02 Oct 2018 18:48 UTC
tetris neurons
© Oleksiy Maksymenko/Wikimedia Commons
The participants played a Tetris-like game as one, transmitting moves to each other using only their minds.
A team of scientists has created a device which allows human beings to cooperate while playing a game using only their thoughts. While the technology is still in its infancy, the potential applications are astounding.

"We present BrainNet which, to our knowledge, is the first multi-person non-invasive direct brain-to-brain interface for collaborative problem solving," the joint team from the University of Washington and Carnegie Mellon University wrote in a pre-publication release.

The three-way neural connection, called BrainNet, operates using two devices: two electroencephalograms (EEGs) transmit the 'senders' instructions to the 'receiver' who wears a transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). Using these devices the three participants could share their thoughts and cooperate to play a Tetris-style video game together, as one. Hardly a mind-bending task but the technology is still in development.
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Brain

Limiting screen time improves cognitive function for children - study

Brett Molina
CNBC
Tue, 02 Oct 2018 18:38 UTC
children technology
© Richard Lewisohn | Cultura | Getty Images
Cutting back on screen time, along with the right amount of sleep and physical activity, is linked to improvements in cognition among children, a study suggests.

The observational study analyzed data from a broader study funded by the National Institutes of Health, focusing on 4,500 children ages 8 to 11.

Researchers compared time spent on screens, sleeping and engaging in physical activity from that study against the Canadian 24-hour Movement Guidelines, created by the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology to advise how kids should spend their time in a given day.

The study associates kids who met the guidelines - which include nine to 11 hours of sleep, at least one hour of physical activity and less than two hours on screens - with improvements in cognition.
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