Astronomy April Fools

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Astronomy Picture of the Day Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) likes to make little jokes on April 1, usually re-captioning existing images. For example, on April 1, 2003 it reported that a new constellation was surprising star gazers. The constellation of Ollie the Owl has suddenly started dominating the southern hemisphere. The picture showed a bird perching on the Tololo All Sky Camera, and APOD admitted that it would have been funnier if the bird hadn't scratched the plastic dome.

However on March 31, 2005, APOD showed the next day's picture as water on Mars . . . which did leave people wondering. This was before orbiters and rovers had gathered considerable evidence of water on the red planet. The April 1 picture was of a glass of water on top of a Mars bar.

Mercury's moon On March 31, 2012 NASA provided the discovery image of a moon for Mercury, as captured by the MESSENGER spacecraft. Even on the eve of April 1, this was credible after all, spacecraft often discover moons. But like many good April Fools, there are clues.

Firstly, the enlarged picture of the moon is immediately recognized by many astronomy buffs. It's a well-known image of asteroid 243 Ida, taken by the Galileo spacecraft on its way to Jupiter.

Secondly, they outlined the plan to collide MESSENGER with the moon to knock it free of Mercury's gravity and set it on an Earth-crossing trajectory suitable for recovery as a Mercury meteorite. In fact, they'd do this with such precision that the moon would arrive at a remote location in Antarctica, avoiding population centers. Whew! Pretty impressive planning for something that had only been discovered the day before!

And finally, there's a mission proposal in the planning stage for X-ray analysis of Mercury's surface. It's name: Hermean On-surface Analysis with X-rays. (What's its acronym?)

Astronauts April Fool in space, 2010. The three-man crew of the International Space Station got a laugh out of Mission Control with a doctored photo of themselves spacewalking - not wearing space suits, but slacks, T-shirts and sunglasses. (Hope they remembered their sunblock!)

On April 1, 2013 Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield tweeted a picture of himself with two space grenades, which were actually air sampling devices. And during the day he tweeted a series of images of an unidentified object nearing the Space Station. I imagine his followers had worked out the April Fool long before the final picture of him with a little green alien. "I don't know what it is or what it wants, but it keeps repeating 'Sloof Lirpa' over and over. Alert the press." (The alien message isn't so strange if you read it backwards.)

The Jovian-Plutonian Gravitational Effect The online Museum of Hoaxes lists Patrick Moore's April Fool as one of the 100 Best Hoaxes. The popular British astronomer, with the help of BBC radio, explained the Jovian-Plutonian Gravitational Effect to listeners on April 1, 1976. He said that at 9:47 a.m., a rare conjunction of Jupiter and Pluto would partially negate Earth's gravity and that if you jumped at that time, you would get a floating feeling.

A number of people later phoned the BBC to describe their experiences of floating. I don't know if they were serious or were joining in on the joke.

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Astronomy April Fools

Charlie Elliot chapter to host observing Saturn program

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Dr. Julius Benton, Jr. will give a presentation at the Charlie Elliot chapter of the Atlanta Astronomy Club on April 5.

MANSFIELD The Charlie Elliott chapter of the Atlanta Astronomy Club plans to give beginner astronomers some tips to better observe the large ringed planet of Saturn.

Author and Saturn observing expert Dr. Julius L. Benton Jr. will give a presentation at 5:30 p.m. Saturday, April 5, to explain how beginner and amateur astronomers with basic equipment can see the rings and satellites of Saturn from their own backyard.

Benton said he will first discuss his involvement with the Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers and the programs it offers.

ALPO is an international organization devoted to study the sun, moon, planets, asteroids, meteors and comets. Its purpose is to stimulate, coordinate, and generally promote the study of these bodies using methods and instruments that are available within the communities of both amateur and professional astronomers, according to its website, http://www.alpo-astronomy.org.

The Charlie Elliott chapter meeting is free and open to the public. Bentons visual aids will show the hows and whys of observing.

There are plenty of programs that people can participate in in order to learn how to observe and understand, Benton said. I think one of the things people will walk away with is that a large telescope isnt needed to observe and theres a lot of programs available that can be enlightening. Not all the observing is done by NASA. We can all contribute in learning more about the planets.

After Bentons discussion, there will be a short presentation of what to expect to see in sky with binoculars and small telescopes during the month of April. The meeting will end with a chance to observe Saturn with participants own telescopes or those supplied by astronomy club members.

A Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society (FRAS), Benton has authored many articles on planetary observing. His book, Saturn and How to Observe It, provides the latest information about the planet, and amateur and professional Saturn images, followed by advice on how to best observe Saturn using a variety of telescope apertures, color filters and magnifications.

Benton is coordinator of the Venus and Saturn observing sections for the ALPO, a worldwide organization of professional astronomers and serious students of solar system astronomy.

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Charlie Elliot chapter to host observing Saturn program

Transcendence Featurette Artificial Intelligence 2014 Johnny Depp Sci Fi Movie HD 1 1 – Video

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Transcendence Featurette Artificial Intelligence 2014 Johnny Depp Sci Fi Movie HD 1 1
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Why Nvidia thinks it can power the AI revolution

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6 hours ago Mar. 31, 2014 - 12:07 PM PDT

Smarter robots and devices are coming to a home near you, and chipmaker Nvidia wants to help make it happen. It wont develop the algorithms that dictate their behavior or build the sensors that let them take in our world, but its graphics-processing units, or GPUs, might be a great way to handle the heavy computing necessary to make many forms of artificial intelligence a reality.

Most applications dont use GPUs exclusively, but rather offload the most computationally intensive tasks onto them from standard microprocessors. Called GPU acceleration, the practice is very common in supercomputing workloads and its becoming ubiquitous in the area of computer vision and object recognition, too. In 2013, more than 80 percent of the teams participating in the ImageNet image-recognition competition utilized GPUs, said Sumit Gupta, general manager of the the Advanced Computing Group at Nvidia.

In March 2013, Google acquired DNNresearch, a deep learning startup co-created by University of Toronto professor Geoff Hinton. Part of the rationale behind that acquisition was teams performance of Hintons team in the 2012 ImageNet competition, where the groups GPU-powered deep learning models easily bested previous approaches.

Source: Nvidia

It turns out that the deep neural network problem is just a slam dunk for the GPU, Gupta said. Thats because deep learning algorithms often require a lot of computing power to process their data (e.g., images or text) and extract the defining features of the things included in that data. Especially during the training phase, when the models and algorithms are being tuned for accuracy, they need to process a lot of data.

Numerous customers are using Nvidias Tesla GPUs forimage and speech recognition, including Adobe and Chinese search giant Baidu. Nvidia is working on other aspects of machine learning as well, Gupta noted. Netflix uses them (in the Amazon Web Services cloud) to power its recommendation engine, Russian search engine Yandex uses GPUs to power its search engine, and IBM uses them to run clustering algorithms inHadoop.

Nvidia might be so excited about machine learning because it has been pushing GPUs as a general-purpose computing platform not just a graphics and gaming chip for years with mixed results. The company has tried to do this by simplify programming its processors via the CUDA language it has developed, but Gupta acknowledged theres still an overall lack of knowledge about how to use GPUs effectively. Thats why so much real innovation still remains with these large users that have the parallel-programming skills necessary to take advantage of 2,500 or more cores at a time (and even more in multi-GPU systems).

Source: Nvidia

However, Nvidia is looking beyond servers and into robotics to fuel some of its machine learning ambitions over the next decade. Last week, the company announced its Jetson TK1 development kit, which Gupta called a supercomputing version of Raspberry Pi. At $192, the kit is programmable using CUDA and includes all the ports one might expect to see, as well as a Tegra K1 system-on-a-chip (the latest version of Nvidias mobile processor) thats comprised of a 192-core Kepler GPU, an ARM Cortex A15 CPU and 300 gigaflops of performance.

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Why Nvidia thinks it can power the AI revolution

Latest XPrize challenges teams to deliver a TED Talk using artificial intelligence

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The XPrize Foundation wants to find out if an artificial intelligence can compose and deliver a good TED Talk

TED Talks are known for being delivered in a captivating, compelling fashion that's why the events' organizers are fairly picky when it comes to selecting speakers. With that in mind, XPrize has teamed up with TED for its latest competition, in which an artificial intelligence (AI) must deliver a TED Talk with no human assistance.

For those who don't know, TED is a non-profit group that regularly presents conferences featuring lectures on "ideas worth spreading." The topics can include just about anything that will enlighten the listeners. The XPrize Foundation, on the other hand, stages competitions in which teams compete to achieve a goal that drives innovation.

The just-announced AI XPrize is described as "a modern-day Turing test to be awarded to the first AI to walk or roll out on stage and present a TED Talk so compelling that it commands a standing ovation from you, the audience."

Although the rules and format of the contest have yet to be finalized, at this point the competing AIs could be contained within a robot, they could simply be disembodied voices, or they could take some other form. A suggested scenario involves them being presented with a topic for a 3-minute talk, 30 minutes before having to take the stage. They would then have to autonomously compose a lecture, deliver it to a live audience in an engaging fashion, and then answer two questions on the topic, as posed by the host of the conference.

The winner would be decided based on the audience's applause.

As mentioned, though, that's just a suggestion. XPrize is open to hearing other peoples' ideas, which can be submitted via the link below.

Source: XPrize

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Latest XPrize challenges teams to deliver a TED Talk using artificial intelligence

Ball Aerospace and Aerojet Rocketdyne Achieve Expanded Operational Range for Green Propellant Infusion Mission

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Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. and Aerojet Rocketdyne exceeded the technical range objective for the main thruster that will fly aboard the Green Propellant Infusion Mission (GPIM). This mission will demonstrate in a space environment, a "green" propellant known as AF-M315E, to replace the highly toxic hydrazine and complex bi-propellant systems in-use today.

"This is an exciting program that will enhance both future spacecraft performance and U.S. competitiveness," said Jim Oschmann, Ball Aerospace Civil Space and Technologies vice president and general manager. "The new propellant technology, once demonstrated on GPIM, will raise both the 22 Newton and 1 Newton class AF-M315E thruster readiness for flight, enabling safer and less costly space missions with significant enhanced in-space propulsion performance."

The GPIM team demonstrated in a lab environment that the 22 Newton-class thruster running AF-M135E propellant had an enhanced operation range over traditional hydrazine used in spacecraft. The test continuously demonstrated that the thruster had enough force to go as high as 27 Newtons and scale down to 4 Newtons. The 22 Newton thruster will fire simultaneously along with four smaller 1N thrusters aboard the GPIM satellite to initiate orbit inclination changes and altitude changes.

"The expanded operational range exemplifies the performance benefits provided by the AF-M315E, which enable a broad range of applications from low-Earth orbit to deep space and facilitate infusion across the marketplace," added Roger Myers, executive director of Electric Propulsion and Integrated Systems at Aerojet Rocketdyne.

Ball is leading an industry and government team to develop and fly the GPIM mission. The new AF-M315E propellant, which is a Hydroxyl Ammonium Nitrate fuel/oxidizer blend, was developed by U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory at Edwards Air Force Base. Aerojet Rocketdyne has developed the thruster and catalyst technologies which enable practical applications for space missions. The GPIM project is a Technology Demonstration Mission managed by the Space Technology Mission Directorate at NASA.

As the prime contractor and principal investigator, Ball collaborates with a team of co-investigators from Aerojet Rocketdyne, NASA Glenn Research Center, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA Kennedy Space Center and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory at Edwards Air Force Base, with additional mission support from the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center at Kirkland Air Force Base.

Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. supports critical missions for national agencies such as the Department of Defense, NASA, NOAA and other U.S. government and commercial entities. The company develops and manufactures spacecraft, advanced instruments and sensors, components, data exploitation systems and RF solutions for strategic, tactical and scientific applications. For more information, visit http://www.ballaerospace.com.

Ball Corporation (BLL)supplies innovative, sustainable packaging solutions for beverage, food and household products customers, as well as aerospace and other technologies and services primarily for the U.S. government. Ball Corporation and its subsidiaries employ 14,500 people worldwide and reported 2013 sales of $8.5 billion. For more information, visit http://www.ball.com, or connect with us on Facebook or Twitter.

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Ball Aerospace and Aerojet Rocketdyne Achieve Expanded Operational Range for Green Propellant Infusion Mission

Victrex Receives As9100 Certification for Its High Performance, Lightweight Aerospace Tubing …

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WEST CONSHOHOCKEN, PA USA Victrex has successfully obtained the rigorous AS9100C/ISO9001:2008 aerospace certification for its VICTREX Pipes production lines. This certification gives the aerospace industry the confidence to specify the robust, lightweight tubing made from VICTREX PEEK polymer. Today, more than 15,000 aircraft rely on the high performance thermoplastic in demanding applications. By achieving this milestone, the world leader in PEEK polymeric solutions continues to take a proactive approach in providing innovative metal replacement products to help boost the efficiency of today's and tomorrow's aircraft.

With aerospace engineers demanding lighter weight solutions, VICTREX Pipes are an attractive and durable alternative to metal given their ability to provide weight reductions of up to 70%. Based on averages from recent fuel economy studies, replacing one hundred meters of metal tubing with a thermoplastic system made from VICTREX PEEK can deliver up to $3,300 in annual fuel cost savings as well as to reduce CO2 emissions by 11 tons per plane. In addition to being lightweight, VICTREX Pipes inherit the benefit of the base polymer of being non-corrosive, which helps the aerospace industry to reduce maintenance costs. High performance over a broad temperature range and excellent fire/smoke/toxicity performance are additional properties that qualify VICTREX PEEK for the aerospace industry.

The international AS9100 standard Victrex obtained was especially designed for the aerospace industry. It requires Victrex to have a quality management system in place to consistently provide products that meet customer and applicable legal and regulatory requirements. Secondly, the standard specifies that the quality management system must establish processes for continuous improvements and ongoing conformity to regulatory requirements in order to provide products that satisfy the needs of aerospace customers. Frank Schemm, VICTREX Pipes Aerospace Market Manager, stated that "all industries we serve benefit from our quality management system and established processes that focus on continuously improving our manufacturing capabilities and products. Being able to provide the highest quality, lightweight products helps manufacturers develop confidence in sustainable solutions enabled by Victrex and its products."

"While Victrex offers straight tubing solutions for demanding aerospace applications, we continue to collaborate with industry-leading companies to develop bent, flared, and jointed systems to fit the spacing requirements of various aircraft platforms," explains Schemm. VICTREX Pipes give engineers the opportunity to create smarter designs to help make the installation process easier for the assembly teams. This has become extremely important particularly with the large backlog of orders that manufacturers have and their need to get aircraft off the assembly line faster. To handle rising demands for new aircraft, it is equally important that Victrex is able to offer stability and security along the entire supply chain.

With 35 years of experience in delivering the highest performing products to demanding industries including aerospace, Victrex will continue to work with leading OEMs and tier suppliers to specify VICTREX Pipes and other VICTREX PEEK material solutions to enhance the efficiency of next generation aircraft. To learn more about VICTREX Pipes for the aerospace industry, please visit http://www.victrexpipes.com.

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Victrex Receives As9100 Certification for Its High Performance, Lightweight Aerospace Tubing ...

Erasing a genetic mutation

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

30-Mar-2014

Contact: Sarah McDonnell s_mcd@mit.edu 617-253-8923 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Using a new gene-editing system based on bacterial proteins, MIT researchers have cured mice of a rare liver disorder caused by a single genetic mutation.

The findings, described in the March 30 issue of Nature Biotechnology, offer the first evidence that this gene-editing technique, known as CRISPR, can reverse disease symptoms in living animals. CRISPR, which offers an easy way to snip out mutated DNA and replace it with the correct sequence, holds potential for treating many genetic disorders, according to the research team.

"What's exciting about this approach is that we can actually correct a defective gene in a living adult animal," says Daniel Anderson, the Samuel A. Goldblith Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT, a member of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, and the senior author of the paper.

The recently developed CRISPR system relies on cellular machinery that bacteria use to defend themselves from viral infection. Researchers have copied this cellular system to create gene-editing complexes that include a DNA-cutting enzyme called Cas9 bound to a short RNA guide strand that is programmed to bind to a specific genome sequence, telling Cas9 where to make its cut.

At the same time, the researchers also deliver a DNA template strand. When the cell repairs the damage produced by Cas9, it copies from the template, introducing new genetic material into the genome. Scientists envision that this kind of genome editing could one day help treat diseases such as hemophilia, Huntington's disease, and others that are caused by single mutations.

Scientists have developed other gene-editing systems based on DNA-slicing enzymes, also known as nucleases, but those complexes can be expensive and difficult to assemble.

"The CRISPR system is very easy to configure and customize," says Anderson, who is also a member of MIT's Institute for Medical Engineering and Science. He adds that other systems "can potentially be used in a similar way to the CRISPR system, but with those it is much harder to make a nuclease that's specific to your target of interest."

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Erasing a genetic mutation

U.S. House bill threatens social- science funding

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Research in the social, behavioral and economic sciences could suffer a 22 percent cut in federal funding if recently proposed legislation is voted into law.

Earlier this month, a House of Representatives committee advanced legislation that if passed will keep the National Science Foundation funding approximately the same but cut deeply into the pool of funding for humanities- and-social-science research. The current $256 million funding level would be reduced to $200 million.

Tom Birkland, associate dean for research and engagement in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, said the proposed legislation would be a savage cut, and that CHASS researchers would only receive about 60 percent of the funding they received in 2000.

It really beats it up, Birkland said.

Currently, social, behavioral and economic research funding composes a small 3.5 percent of the NSFs $7.28 billion budget, and Birkland said the proposed changes would save the agency very little money.

The problem is that sometimes, Congress doesnt see the point in social-science research, Birkland said.

Last year, the NSF awarded a group of researchers to study how Native American communities used legal strategies to effect policy change, Birkland said.

Congress looks at that and thinks, What is the value? Birkland said. They think, Do we want to encourage that?

But some things are worth knowing simply for the sake of knowing them, Birkland said.

Astronomy has little practical benefit, Birkland said. Congress rejects certain research on the grounds of fiscal responsibility, or other ideological grounds. Thats a legitimate conversation to have in a democracy, but why cant we pursue the science of sociology as well as biology and astronomy?

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U.S. House bill threatens social- science funding