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Robot

AI reads emotions better than humans

Matthew Loffhagen
Outer Places
Wed, 21 Mar 2018 18:31 UTC
AI Reading Emotions
© Pixabay
A new artificial intelligence has been constructed that is better than humans at reading emotions. This isn't based on the facial expression a person might be making, but instead, on how red their face is.

Yes, that's right-robots can tell when you're blushing.

What's particularly interesting is that this AI was created as a side project for different research-it wasn't even the primary goal of the experiment.

A team at Ohio State University has been researching human displays of emotions. Their studies have been based on the belief that humans display subtle but noticeable changes in skin color, caused by blood flow within the face, in order to communicate how we're feeling. If parts of a person's face get redder, they might be experiencing surprise or happiness, while if other parts change color, it could be an indicator of sadness or disappointment.

Apparently, it is possible to detect if someone is telling you a bald-faced lie, all by looking at how much blood is coursing through their face.

In order to test this theory, the scientists created an AI that could measure the color of certain parts of a person's face in order to guess at their emotions. The robot was given pictures of a person experiencing different emotions, and, without having any training on understanding expressions, the AI was forced to make assumptions based completely on color. As the photos showed people with blank expressions, it wasn't possible for humans to determine their emotions based on whether or not they were smiling, and so everyone involved had to use facial hue alone.
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Eye 1

Possible cure for blindness found as stem cell trial restores sight in two patients


RT
Tue, 20 Mar 2018 21:28 UTC
surgeons
© Nguyen Huy Kham / Reuters
Treatment for one of the leading causes of blindness could be available within five years. That's according to scientists who used a revolutionary stem cell therapy to restore vision in two patients.

The patients - a woman in her 60s and a man in his 80s - suffered from severe visual impairment caused by age-related macular degeneration (AMD). The disease causes the gradual loss of sight due to blurring or loss of central vision.

AMD is the most common cause of blindness in people over the age of 50, causing the gradual loss of sight due to blurring or loss of central vision. It takes two forms: wet and dry. The patients treated in the trial had the rapidly developing wet AMD and could not read at all, even with spectacles.

Scientists from the London Project to Cure Blindness examined whether the diseased cells at the back the patients' affected eye could be replenished using a stem cell-based patch. A specially engineered surgical tool was used to insert the patch under the retina in an operation lasting up to two hours.

Comment: Stem cell therapy: The innovations and potential to help repair and regenerate your body

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Archaeology

Fossilized brains of ancient 'sea monster' discovered in Greenland

Laura Geggel
Live Science
Thu, 15 Mar 2018 20:59 UTC
Kerygmachela kierkegaardi fossilized brains
© Rebecca Gelernter
An artist's interpretation of Kerygmachela kierkegaardi, the weird critter that once possessed the 520-million-year-old brains
The discovery of not just one, but 15 fossilized brains from a 520-million-year-old marine predator is helping scientists understand how ancient brains evolved into the complex command centers they are today.

The creature in question, Kerygmachela kierkegaardi - a bizarre, oval-shaped water beast that had two long appendages on its head, 11 swimming flaps on each side and a skinny tail - isn't new to science, but its brain is, said study co-lead researcher Jakob Vinther, a United Kingdom-based paleontologist.

The animal would have been up to 10 inches (25 centimeters) long, based on the findings. And unlike the human brain, which is divided into three segments, the fossilized brain of this predator was simple, with just a single segment. This means that the brain was less complex than the three-segmented brains seen in the creature's distant, arthropod relatives, such as spiders, lobsters and butterflies, Vinther said.
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Frog

Darwin, we've got a problem: Reverse speciation and environmentalists playing god

Kip Hansen
Watts Up With That
Sun, 18 Mar 2018 13:00 UTC
dogs breeds or species
Biology has a 'new' problem: Speciation Reversal. One recent paper on the topic declares:
"We argue that extinction by speciation reversal may be more widespread than currently appreciated. Preventing such extinctions will require that conservation efforts not only target existing species but identify and protect the ecological and evolutionary processes that generate and maintain species".
Another paper worries that climate change is hastening the loss of landscape heterogeneity thus encouraging "Interspecific hybridization [which] is .... an evolutionary process that is (i) highly susceptible to human influences, and (ii) very fast" and that "The most probable proximate outcome of such hybridization will be a collapse of hybridizing species and subsequent loss of biodiversity."

A third paper laments the speciation reversal seen in two previously separately identified raven species in California, the non-sister lineages of 'California' and 'Holarctic' ravens, which underwent a fusion and formed the Common Raven. This "represents a case of ancient speciation reversal that occurred without anthropogenic causes." This same paper holds that "Under certain circumstances, hybridisation can cause distinct lineages to collapse into a single lineage with an admixed mosaic genome. Most known cases of such 'speciation reversal' or 'lineage fusion' involve recently diverged lineages and anthropogenic perturbation."

Comment: See Also:

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Beaker

Understanding of liquid-to-glass transition process improves creation of metallic glass


PhysOrg
Mon, 19 Mar 2018 20:47 UTC
glass shards
For millennia, people have used molten sand and other ingredients to create glass and fashion beads, vessels, lenses and windows.

These days, metallic glasses - made entirely of metal atoms - are being developed for biomedical applications such as extra-sharp surgical needles, stents, and artificial joints or implants because the alloys can be ultra-hard, extra strong, very smooth and resistant to corrosion.

While a combination of trial and error and scientific research helped refine glassmaking processes over time, controlling the creation of metallic glasses at the atomic level remains an inexact endeavor informed largely by long experience and intuition.

"Our job," says Paul Voyles, "is to build fundamental understanding by adding more data."
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Comet 2

New Comet: C/2018 E1 (ATLAS)

Ernesto Guido
Remanzacco Blogspot
Mon, 19 Mar 2018 17:17 UTC
CBET nr. 4494, issued on 2018, March 16, announces the discovery of an apparently asteroidal object (magnitude ~17) in the course of the "Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System" (ATLAS) search program on CCD images obtained with a 0.5-m f/2 Schmidt reflector at Haleakala, Hawaii. Posted on the Minor Planet Center's PCCP webpage, it has been reported as showing cometary activity by CCD astrometrists elsewhere. The new comet has been designated C/2018 E1 (ATLAS).

I performed follow-up measurements of this object, while it was still on the PCCP webpage. Stacking of 5 unfiltered exposures, 60 seconds each, obtained remotely on 2018, March 12.4 from Q62 (iTelescope network) through a 0.70-m f/6.6 reflector + CCD, shows that this object is a comet with a diffuse coma about 5 arcsec in diameter. The FWHM of this object was measured about 20% wider than that of nearby field stars of similar brightness.

My confirmation image (click on it for a bigger version)
Comet C/2018 E1 Atlas
© Remanzacco Blogspot
"Pre-discovery" Panstarrs observations (2015 & 2016) were identified by R. Weryk. M.P.E.C. 2018-F10 assigns the following elliptical orbital elements to comet C/2018 E1: T 2018 Apr. 17.3; e= 0.95; Peri. = 299.47; q = 2.70; Incl.= 72.48
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Pi

Pi is wrong! We should all be celebrating Tau Day

Emily Conover
Science News
Wed, 14 Mar 2018 15:27 UTC
Pi blackboard
© domin_domin/iStockphoto
NOT PIOUS Pi, the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, is revered as an all-important number in mathematics. But some are starting to question that devotion.
As a physics reporter and lover of mathematics, I won't be celebrating Pi Day this year. That's because pi is wrong.

I don't mean that the value is incorrect. Pi, known by the symbol π, is the number you get when you divide a circle's circumference by its diameter: 3.14159... and so on without end. But, as some mathematicians have argued, the mathematical constant was poorly chosen, and students worldwide continue to suffer as a result.

A longtime fixture of high school math classes, pi has inspired books, art (SN Online: 5/4/06) and enthusiasts who memorize it to tens of thousands of decimal places (SN: 4/7/12, p. 12). But some contend that replacing pi with a different mathematical constant could make trigonometry and other math subjects easier to learn. These critics - including myself - advocate for an arguably more elegant number equal to 2π: 6.28318.... Sometimes known as tau, or the symbol τ, the quantity is equal to a circle's circumference divided by its radius, not its diameter.
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2 + 2 = 4

The Black Hole in the JANUS Cosmological Model

Jean-Pierre Petit
YouTube
Sun, 21 Jan 2018 21:47 UTC
Jean-Pierre Petit

Jean-Pierre Petit explaining the Janus model
The unmanageable runaway effect prevents the introduction of negative mass in astrophysics and cosmology. It becomes possible to cancel that phenomenon in the Janus cosmological bimetric model, with great benefit. Negative mass content explains many observed phenomena and makes the dark matter and dark energy no longer necessary.


Further reading:
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Dig

Evolve or die: Ancient humans learned to be social more than 320,000 years ago

Deborah Netburn
LA Times
Thu, 15 Mar 2018 15:29 UTC
Rick Potts
© Human Origins Program, Smithsonian
Rick Potts, director of the National Museum of Natural History’s Human Origins Program at the Smithsonian, surveys an assortment of Early Stone Age hand axes discovered in Kenya's Olorgesailie Basin.
New discoveries in eastern Africa suggest that human behaviors like symbolic thought and the creation of extended social networks were established at least 320,000 years ago - tens of thousands of years earlier than previously thought.

The work, published as a trio of papers Thursday in Science, sheds new light on the often murky story of when our ancestors first started acting like humans, and why, experts said.

"What we are seeing is a complex set of developments that may represent new ways of surviving in an unpredictable environment," said Rick Potts, a paleoanthropologist and director of the Smithsonian's Human Origins program. "It is a package we didn't know occurred so early, and right at the root of our species."

For more than 30 years, Potts has led excavations in southern Kenya at a site known as the Olorgesailie Basin, which was occupied by hominids for more than 1 million years.
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Vinyl

Volcanic thunder recorded for the first time

Mary Beth Griggs
Popular Science
Fri, 16 Mar 2018 11:37 UTC
This satellite image shows Bogoslof volcano erupting on May 28, 2017.
© Dave Schneider/Alaska Volcano Observatory & U.S. Geological Survey
This satellite image shows Bogoslof volcano erupting on May 28, 2017.
It's an explosion that starts within the earth, a release of pressurized gases and bits of rock; either as sharp shards or molten fragments or both. A volcanic eruption is one of the most powerful demonstrations of the dynamism of the planet that we usually think of as solid and unyielding.

It's also loud. Really, really loud. Underwater eruptions can sound like gunshots or bombs reverberating through the water. Looking for a single, ephemeral sound within all that noise of tons of lava and gas and ash and rock all getting slammed out of the Earth's crust is like listening for a whisper in a thunderstorm.

Or like, you know, listening for thunder in the middle of a volcanic eruption. That's exactly what some researchers managed to record during eruptions of Alaska's Bogoslof volcano last year.

They noticed that cracks and pops in the recordings lined up with the timing of volcanic lightning in the same area. Volcanic lightning occurs when eruptions that send a lot of ash into the atmosphere. During their speed run into the air, the ash particles rub against each other, creating an electric charge a lot like when you rub a balloon against your hair. As the particles spread out, that electric charge discharges into lightning....and apparently, thunder.
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