Science & Technology

Not sci-fi: Lasers to be used against mini-drones in future claims military expert

RT
Fri, 01 Mar 2019 18:10 UTC

Attacks by cheap, yet efficient, mini-drones will be the future of warfare and lasers look like the best response to the threat, a retired colonel told RT as Germany announced a successful military laser test.

"Imagine an attack on an important facility with several hundred AI-controlled unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), equipped with warheads the size of a hand grenade and capable of flying into an open window or a cockpit of an aircraft," Mikhail Khodarenok, military analyst and retired colonel in Russian missile defense forces, told RT.

Mini-drones cost relatively little, but can do significant damage by "striking a modern airplane, priced at more than $100 million, at an airfield or destroying a very expensive long-range anti-aircraft missile system," he said.

"How do you stop those UAVs? Fire anti-aircraft guided missiles, worth $200 thousand each, at them?" Khodarenok wondered.

Effective means of combating micro- and mini-UAVs are currently nonexistent and lasers look like a very promising area of research in this regard. Firing a laser costs pennies, but the effect can be huge.

Singing revolutions: Whale songs 'complex' and 'revolutionary'

Brendan Montague
The Ecologist
Wed, 21 Nov 2018 13:13 UTC

Humpback whales participate in a shared, constantly evolving song cycle.

All male humpback whales in the eastern Australia population sing the same song at any one time, according to new research from the University of St Andrews and the University of Queensland.

Research into song patterns studied over 13 years found that the song gradually changed each year - but that every few years their song is completely replaced in cultural 'revolution' events. When revolution events occurred, the new song was always simpler than the one it replaced.

The study, published today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, suggests that gradual song changes may be embellishments by individual singers, and that songs sung after revolutions are simpler because singers may have limited ability to learn new material.

Poland showing signs towards procuring 32 F-35 fifth-generation jets

Jacek Siminski
The Aviationist
Thu, 28 Feb 2019 00:00 UTC

During a press conference held today and reported broadly by the Polish media, the head of the Polish MoD, Mariusz Błaszczak, placed a major emphasis on acquisition of the new fighter aircraft for the Polish Air Force. The main argument used by the Polish official, when justifying the procurement, was the number of incidents and reduced reliability of the post-soviet inventory of the Polish military aviation (MiG-29 and Su-22 aircraft types). The conference concerned the introduction of a new Technichal Modernization Plan, that would cover the period between 2017 and 2026. The document outlines the modernization effort that is to be undertaken by the MoD over the term in question.

Błaszczak suggested that, within the framework of the newly adopted technical modernization plan, Harpia program is a priority. The Polish official emphasized the role that 5th generation airframes play in the structure of the modern military - they act as a force multiplier. And this has been the role assigned to them by Błaszczak during his speech - the new jets are to complement the F-16s. Given that the only 5-generation aircraft available on the market now is the F-35, the Polish official has been probably referring to the Lockheed Martin's latest platform.

Overall, the value of the new Technical Modernization Plan issued by the MoD is contained in an amount of PLN 185 billion (49B USD), which means that the amount is 45 billion zlotys (12B USD) higher than in case of the preceding document.

Researchers discover every species has backup plans in network of protein interactions

Tom Abate
Phys.org
Tue, 26 Feb 2019 17:57 UTC

Scientists have learned a lot about evolution by studying fossils, by observing nature and, more recently, by unraveling the genetic code stored in DNA.

Now, a team of Stanford computer scientists and biologists has looked at evolution through a new lens, by analyzing how proteins - the biological machines produced by DNA - evolve to sustain the network of molecular interactions upon which all life depends.

Comment: Red flag: the study doesn't show how the ability to sustain molecular interaction networks 'evolved'. It shows that such networks exist. To show specifically how such networks evolved would require a complete flow chart of specific mutations, step by step.

The scientists studied 1,840 species - from bacteria to primates - to understand how evolution built life forms that could survive in the face of natural adversities.

Comment: Again, they didn't show how "evolution built" these things. That is just an assumption based on the a priori acceptance of a theory which has not been empirically demonstrated. Keep that in mind every time the author uses the word "evolve" below.

What they discovered was profound yet intuitive: Every species has evolved backup plans that allow its protein machinery to find bypasses and workarounds when nature tries to gum up the works. No previous study has ever surveyed such a broad swath of species to find a survival strategy common to all life: Develop a versatile and robust molecular machinery.

"Across our entire sample, we find that the resilience of a species is strongly correlated with having protein networks that are robust to failure and can interact in multiple ways to preserve life," said Stanford computer scientist Jure Leskovec, senior author of the paper that appears today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

New study reveals Mars had a 'planet-wide groundwater system'

RT
Fri, 01 Mar 2019 10:40 UTC

Scientists have discovered the first geological evidence of a system of ancient interconnected underground lakes on Mars. Five of the lakes may have contained minerals that are crucial to life.

A new study now reveals ancient Mars had a planet-wide underground water system, confirming what before now was only theorized, thanks to the European Space Agency (ESA) Mars Express orbiter.

"Early Mars was a watery world, but as the planet's climate changed this water retreated below the surface to form pools and 'groundwater,'" said lead author Francesco Salese. "We traced this water in our study, as its scale and role is a matter of debate, and we found the first geological evidence of a planet-wide groundwater system on Mars."

Comment: See also:

The unsolved mystery of the Earth blobs

Jenessa Duncombe
EOS
Wed, 27 Feb 2019 13:00 UTC

© Mingming Li/Arizona State University
What lies below? A cutaway of Earth down to the liquid core shows the swirling mantle rock (dark blue). Made from a numerical convection model, the image shows mysterious structures underneath the Pacific Ocean that some researchers believe hold the clue to unlocking mysteries of Earth’s past (light blue).

Researchers peering into Earth's interior found two continent-sized structures that upend our picture of the mantle. What could their existence mean for us back on Earth's surface?

Some 2,000 kilometers beneath our feet, there are enormous masses of hot mantle material that have baffled scientists for the last 4 decades.

The blobs, as some scientists have taken to calling them, are the length of continents and stretch 100 times higher than Mount Everest. They sit at the bottom of Earth's rocky mantle above the molten outer core, a place so deep that Earth's elements are squeezed beyond recognition. The blobs are made of rock, just like the rest of the mantle, but they may be hotter and heavier and hold a key to unlocking the story of Earth's past.

Scientists first spotted the blobs in the late 1970s. Researchers had just invented a new way to peer inside Earth: seismic tomography. When an earthquake shakes the planet, it lets out waves of energy in all directions. Scientists track those waves when they reach the surface and calculate where they came from. By looking at the travel times of waves from many earthquakes, taken from thousands of instruments around the globe, scientists can reverse engineer a picture of Earth's interior. The process is similar to a doctor using an ultrasound device to image a fetus in the womb.

Comment: See also:

Lab grown meat could produce more 'damage' than the real thing, scientists warn

Harry Cockburn
Independent
Tue, 19 Feb 2019 20:21 UTC

Artificially-grown beef could generate longer-lasting and more damaging greenhouse gases than rearing cattle normally, according a new scientific study.

Agriculture accounts for around a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions driving up global temperatures.

Cattle, which produce significant quantities of methane and nitrous oxide, are among the biggest contributors.

The demand for beef has also seen vast tracts of land turned into grazing pastures, many of which have to be fertilised with nitrogen-based products, which are also a major source of greenhouse gases.

Comment: As regular readers are aware, the hype about greenhouse gases are all for naught. That said, if researchers are using crazy theories to counter even crazier ideas like lab grown meat, then so be it!

Human super-vision using nanoparticles maybe an option soon

K.S. Anthony
Outer Places
Thu, 28 Feb 2019 13:54 UTC

In the 2000 science fiction film Pitch Black, an escaped prisoner who's received prison surgery that enables him to see in the dark uses his superhuman enhancement to fight off species of alien predators on what was supposed to be a deserted planet. That technology - minus the jailhouse crudity - may soon be an option for humans wishing to transcend the limits nature has placed upon our species. A team of scientists and researchers from the University of Science and Technology of China and the University of Massachusetts Medical School successfully used injections of nanoparticles to enhance the vision of mice, allowing them to see both infrared (IR) and visible light. Their findings were published in the journal Cell.

Many mammals - including humans and mice - can only see the range of light wavelengths known as visible light. There are, however, other wavelengths that we cannot detect except with special equipment: night vision goggles are an example of IR detecting technology. In a Phys.org article, University of Massachusetts Medical School researcher Gang Han explained the basic science of vision. "When light enters the eye and hits the retina, the rods and cones-or photoreceptor cells-absorb the photons with visible light wavelengths and send corresponding electric signals to the brain," Han explained. "Because infrared wavelengths are too long to be absorbed by photoreceptors, we are not able to perceive them."

The injections consisted of nanoparticles that connected to photoreceptor cells and served as IR light transducers. The particles were designed to absorb the longer IR wavelengths and emit the shorter visible wavelengths, which are in turn absorbed by photoreceptor cells that signal the brain.

Co-founder of Kaspersky Lab: Russia can be unplugged from World Wide Web, but it's not quite ready

RT
Thu, 28 Feb 2019 16:26 UTC

By passing a draft law on its Internet, Russia isn't isolating itself from the rest of the world but is making sure that national networks don't go down if they are disconnected from the outside, Kaspersky Lab co-founder told RT.

The bill, officially called the Digital Economy National Program, requires Russia's Internet providers to ensure they can operate even if foreign powers try to take the country offline. Western mainstream media and Russian opposition pundits rushed to accuse the government of building a "sovereign Internet," similar to what China has built over the years.

Comment: What's so bad about building a sovereign Internet? Surely the US military has done the same thing.

But the reality is far more complex, explained Natalya Kasperskaya, a cybersecurity expert and co-founder of world-renowned Kaspersky Lab. She said the proposed legislation is getting misrepresented in the media.

"The law has two components. The first one is to ensure that the Internet stays operational if it is shut down from the outside," she told RT. "There is such a possibility, and we are not quite prepared for that."

'Nature' falls into the progressive tiger pit, claims Neurosexism is a 'myth'

Nature
Thu, 28 Feb 2019 14:55 UTC

Early in The Gendered Brain, cognitive neuroscientist Gina Rippon describes one of the myriad brain studies heralded as 'finally' explaining the difference between men and women. It was a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) analysis of 21 men and 27 women by researchers at the University of California, Irvine (R. J. Haier et al. NeuroImage 25, 320-327; 2005). Tiny by today's standards, this brief communication nonetheless went on quite a publicity tour, from newspapers and blogs to television, books and, eventually, teacher education and corporate leadership conferences.

I woke one morning in 2010 to see an especially bad extrapolation of this study on the Early Show, a programme on US television network CBS. The presenter, Harry Smith, gushed as medical correspondent Jennifer Ashton declared that men have "six-and-a-half times more grey matter" than women, whereas women have "ten times as much white matter" as men. Next came the obvious quips about men's talent at mathematics and women's uncanny ability to multitask. Never mind that these differences would demand that women's heads were about 50% larger, or that the Irvine team didn't even compare brain volumes, but investigated a correlation between IQ and measures of grey or white matter.

Comment: Comparing a person's brain with their liver considering the massively different functions they serve is yet another erroneous argument. If this is the extent of the book's data then it fails to debunk anything. As noted in How genetics is proving that race is not necessarily a social construct:

For me, a natural response to the challenge is to learn from the example of the biological differences that exist between males and females. The differences between the sexes are far more profound than those that exist among human populations, reflecting more than 100 million years of evolution and adaptation. Males and females differ by huge tracts of genetic material - a Y chromosome that males have and that females don't, and a second X chromosome that females have and males don't.

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Science & Technology

Not sci-fi: Lasers to be used against mini-drones in future claims military expert

Singing revolutions: Whale songs 'complex' and 'revolutionary'

Poland showing signs towards procuring 32 F-35 fifth-generation jets

Researchers discover every species has backup plans in network of protein interactions

New study reveals Mars had a 'planet-wide groundwater system'

The unsolved mystery of the Earth blobs

Lab grown meat could produce more 'damage' than the real thing, scientists warn

Human super-vision using nanoparticles maybe an option soon

Co-founder of Kaspersky Lab: Russia can be unplugged from World Wide Web, but it's not quite ready

'Nature' falls into the progressive tiger pit, claims Neurosexism is a 'myth'

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