Tar balls make appearance along Coastal Bend beaches – kiiitv.com

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Blobs of tar have been know to wash up onto our local beaches this time of year and once again it's back.

Bill Churchwell, KIII 11:17 PM. CDT August 09, 2017

CORPUS CHRISTI (KIII NEWS) - Blobs of tar have been know to wash up onto our local beaches this time of year and once again it's back.

The reports are something that has prompted a cleanup response from the U.S. Coast Guard from Corpus Christi along with the Texas General Land Office.

From Port Aransas down to the Padre Island National Seashore, giant globs of tar have been discovered on our local beaches, some as large as 4-5 feet in diameter.

Brent Koza with the Texas General Land Office told 3 News, "over the past two weeks, we've recovered about 1700 gallons of tar. It's old and weathered."

The Texas General Land Office has partnered with the US Coast Guard to patrol our coast line and properly dispose of the patties.

The phenomenon is not something new to our area. Officials say the tar can occur naturally.

Still, samples will also be taken and analyzed to see where it's all coming from.

If you step on it, the gooey tar can stick to your feet or clothing and can prove difficult to get off.

The good news is that the latest tar that has been discovered seems to be more solid. Officials are still advising people to stay clear of it. "As the tar weathers in the environment, it becomes solid. It's not sticky or tacky to the touch, which is usually when you start worrying more about public health and safety and the threat to our wildlife around here."

The funding to support the response efforts will remain open throughout the peak of hurricane season.

2017 KIII-TV

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Beaches at Padre Island National Seashore are closed to driving until further notice due to super high tides – KRIS Corpus Christi News

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CORPUS CHRISTI -

Due to Hurricane Franklin waves have surged onto the beaches of Padre Island National Seashore up to the dune line.

To protect visitors the beaches at the seashore are closed to beach driving until further notice.

The public will be notified when conditions improve enough to open the beaches once again to driving.

In addition there is a very high danger of rip currents, so swimmers should think twice before going into the water.

Related Stories High tide leads to North Beach flooding Avoid beaches due to higher tide and heavy surf TAMUCC Student uses a high tech tracking device to monitor the red tide

Reading on your phone? Download theKRIS 6 News Mobile App for iOS/iPhone here.And for Android users here!

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Beaches at Padre Island National Seashore are closed to driving until further notice due to super high tides - KRIS Corpus Christi News

Is this the first picture of an eclipse? – Astronomy Magazine

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There are so many photographs of eclipses, and while theyre all amazing to see, this one might be the most special.

Emeritus J. McKim Kim Malville, professor of astrophysical and planetary sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder, said there may be a very old symbol of a total solar eclipse in New Mexicos Chaco Canyon.

The petroglyph, a picture carved into a rock known as Piedra del Sol in the canyon, shows a circle with looping lines coming off of it, similar to the suns corona. The petroglyph was first discovered during a CU Boulder school trip and is believed to have been a representation of the July 11, 1097 total solar eclipse.

To me it looks like a circular feature with curved tangles and structures, Malville said in a press release. If one looks at a drawing by a German astronomer of the 1860 total solar eclipse during high solar activity, rays and loops similar to those depicted in the Chaco petroglyph are visible.

Malville worked with Jos Vaquero, a professor at the University of Extremadura in Cceres, Spain, to study the petroglyph in relation to the 1097 eclipse using three different sources. The first was using ancient tree rings that were dated back to thousands of years ago. The rings also have traces of isotope carbon-14, which can be correlated back to solar activity at the time. Less carbon-14 means more sunspots, and sunspots are evidence of high solar activity.

The second method the pair used was naked-eye observations of sunspots, and the third method was studying data from northern Europeans about auroral nights, or the northern nights, which is another sign of high solar activity. Their findings about the petroglyph were published in the Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology in 2014.

Piedra del Sol also has a spiral petroglyph that Malville said marks sunrises about 15 days before June solstice as well as a hollowed-out bowl on the east side where Chacoans left offerings. There are two other astronomical art pieces on rocks Chaco Canyon: what is believed to be the A.D. 1054 supernova and a comet, possibly Halleys Comet.

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Is this the first picture of an eclipse? - Astronomy Magazine

Astronomers find pristine dark asteroids lurking in the inner belt – Astronomy Magazine

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The asteroids that populate our solar system are some of the oldest relics of its formation. Studying these relics tells astronomers not only about the conditions in which they and the planets formed, but also about the dynamical history of the solar. Recently, a team of astronomers including researchers from the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) identified some of the oldest, most pristine asteroids in the main belt, offering an even clearer picture of our nascent solar system.

The work, which was published online August 3 in Science, yielded two important results. First, astronomers spotted a relatively empty spot in the main asteroid belt. The low population in this area means asteroids found in it likely havent undergone significant collisions or evolution, leaving them largely unchanged since their formation. Second, the team identified the oldest family of asteroids found yet, revealing samples of our early solar system for future study.

Nothing is static in our solar system. Over time, asteroids in the main belt (and elsewhere) have undergone collisions that have changed their shape, composition, and other properties. The remnants of these collisions typically end up on similar orbits, creating families of asteroids that astronomers can trace back to one or a few parent bodies.

By identifying all the families in the main belt, we can figure out which asteroids have been formed by collisions and which might be some of the original members of the asteroid belt, said Dr. Kevin Walsh, an astronomer at SwRI and co-author on the paper, in a press release.

Astronomers have already identified more than 100 asteroid families. But the family recently identified was previously unknown, Walsh said. We identified all known families and their members and discovered a gigantic void in the main belt, populated by only a handful of asteroids. These relics must be part of the original asteroid belt. That is the real prize, to know what the main belt looked like just after it formed.

How did they find it? By using a new technique that looked for the edges of asteroid families. Over time, families spread apart, largely due to the effects of sunlight on the asteroids surface, which can impact their orbits. The effect impacts smaller bodies more than larger bodies, causing those small bodies to spread the widest. But by correlating properties such as size and distance, the team was able to reconstruct the shape of a new asteroid family one that formed four billion years ago and stretches throughout the inner part of the asteroid belt.

This family is much darker (less reflective) than other known asteroid families. And those other known families are thought to have formed only about one billion years ago. Thus, the new family is four times older, revealing a much more pristine picture of the early solar system for astronomers to study.

Notably, four billion years ago is a time before the gas giants in our solar system had been locked into their current orbital positions. Thats significant, Walsh said, because The giant planet migration shook up the asteroid belt, removing many bodies, possibly including the parent of this family.

Data on the new family has already indicated that its smallest original members were at least 22 miles (35 kilometers) across. This information has significant meaning for the way in which the asteroids formed, as large initial sizes supports the theory that these bodies formed as dust particles smashed together, quickly creating larger bodies with more gravity.

Now that the team has successfully identified an old, previously unknown asteroid family with their technique, they plan to search the entire asteroid belt for more clues about how the bodies in it formed and the history theyve undergone.

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Astronomers find pristine dark asteroids lurking in the inner belt - Astronomy Magazine

What Solar Eclipses Have Taught Us About the Universe – TIME

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Total solar eclipses like the one that will cross the U.S. on Aug. 21 have captured the attention of astronomers throughout history and have often led to advances in our understanding of how the universe works.

Astronomers have been studying solar eclipses for centuries. In the late 16th and early 17th centuries, Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe and his apprentice German astronomer Johannes Kepler studied eclipses to try to arrive at a rough estimate of the moon's diameter.

In the 19th century, eclipse observations got even more interesting, thanks in large part to advances in scientific instruments like telescopes and spectrometers, devices that let scientists analyze the chemistry of stars and distant planets. In 1868, French astronomer Jules Janssen and English astronomer Norman Lockyer were observing separate solar eclipses when they discovered a new element, which they named helios , after the Greek word for "sun." Today, it's known as helium .

During an eclipse in 1879, American astronomer Charles Augustus Young and Scotland-born astronomer William Harkness both thought they had discovered another new element . But they had actually observed exceptionally hot iron in the sun's corona, the suns outer atmosphere. This was the first indication that the corona is millions of degrees hotter than the sun's surface, a mystery that puzzles astronomers to this day.

Perhaps the most interesting eclipse-based discovery came in 1919. Albert Einsteins theory of general relativity was still being met with skepticism. Under this theory, big gravitational masses like stars and planets warp the fabric of space-time, bending light as it travels through the universe. Einstein didn't have a way of proving it, but luckily, Sir Frank Watson Dyson, the Astronomer Royal of Britain at the time, a senior post in the Royal Households of the U.K., came up with a solution. He plotted the positions of stars that would be near the suns limb, or edge, before a solar eclipse, then measured their positions again during the eclipse. He found that the stars' positions had changed. The only explanation was that the mass of the sun was bending space-time and curving the stars light. They looked to be in different positions, but it was really an effect of the suns mass. It was proof Einstein was right.

So when you watch the eclipse on Aug. 21, which will be visible in parts of 14 states as a total solar solar eclipse and in the rest of the country as a partial solar eclipse, it's a good moment to remember the cosmic event's history of illuminating our place in space.

Amy Shira Teitel is a spaceflight historian who will co-host TIME's livestream of the solar eclipse on Aug. 21

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What Solar Eclipses Have Taught Us About the Universe - TIME

Do you have questions about Laser SETI and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence? – Astronomy Magazine

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The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, or SETI, has been seeking to improve our ability to intercept and identify intelligent signals from beyond our planet for decades. Now, Laser SETI represents another leap forward, with the ability to search the entire sky all the time for signals that might last just a fraction of a second. This ambitious but achievable project will use cost-effective camera systems at observatories positioned around the globe to put eyes on the sky 24/7. Laser SETI is still in its initial funding stages, and theres still time to get behind this groundbreaking project. And now, you also have the opportunity to have your questions about Laser SETI and the SETI effort answered by a scientist working on the project.

Last month, Astronomy magazine featured a closer look at the Laser SETI project on our website. Now, were pleased to announce that next week, Astronomy.com will host a guest blog by Eliot Gillum, a Laser SETI project scientist and director of the Optical SETI program. And for that blog, were requesting questions from you about Laser SETI, Optical SETI, and the SETI effort. Well pick a few of the top questions we receive for Eliot to address on our Local Group blog.

If you have questions about Laser SETI and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, please leave them in our comments section below or email them to askastro@kalmbach.com by Tuesday, August 15.

Laser SETIs crowdfunding project will continue through August 18. You can find out more about the project and how to become a contributor to the SETI effort on the Laser SETI Indiegogo campaign page.

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Do you have questions about Laser SETI and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence? - Astronomy Magazine

Hint of relativity effects in stars orbiting centre of galaxy – Astronomy Now Online

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This artists impression shows the orbits of three of the stars very close to the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way. Analysis of data from ESOs Very Large Telescope and other telescopes suggests that the orbits of these stars may show the subtle effects predicted by Einsteins general theory of relativity. There are hints that the orbit of the star called S2 is deviating slightly from the path calculated using classical physics. The position of the supermassive black hole is marked with a white circle with a blue halo. Credit: ESO/M. Parsa/L. Calada

A new analysis of data from ESOs Very Large Telescope and other telescopes suggests that the orbits of stars around the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way may show the subtle effects predicted by Einsteins general theory of relativity. There are hints that the orbit of the star S2 is deviating slightly from the path calculated using classical physics. This tantalising result is a prelude to much more precise measurements and tests of relativity that will be made using the GRAVITY instrument as star S2 passes very close to the black hole in 2018.

At the centre of the Milky Way, 26 000 light-years from Earth, lies the closestsupermassive black hole, which has a mass four million times that of the Sun. This monster is surrounded by a small group of stars orbiting at high speed in the black holes very strong gravitational field. It is a perfect environment in which to test gravitational physics, and particularly Einsteins generaltheory of relativity.

A team of German and Czech astronomers have now applied new analysis techniques to existing observations of the stars orbiting the black hole, accumulated usingESOs Very Large Telescope(VLT) in Chile and others over the last twenty years. They compare the measured star orbits to predictions made using classicalNewtonian gravityas well as predictions from general relativity.

The team found suggestions of a small change in the motion of one of the stars, known as S2, that is consistent with the predictions of general relativity. The change due to relativistic effects amounts to only a few percent in the shape of the orbit, as well as only about one sixth of a degree in the orientation of the orbit. If confirmed, this would be the first time that a measurement of the strength of the general relativistic effects has been achieved for stars orbiting a supermassive black hole.

Marzieh Parsa, PhD student at the University of Cologne, Germany and lead author of the paper, is delighted: The Galactic Centre really is the best laboratory to study the motion of stars in a relativistic environment. I was amazed how well we could apply the methods we developed with simulated stars to the high-precision data for the innermost high-velocity stars close to the supermassive black hole.

The high accuracy of the positional measurements, made possible by the VLTs near-infrared adaptive optics instruments, was essential for the study. These were vital not only during the stars close approach to the black hole, but particularly during the time when S2 was further away from the black hole. The latter data allowed an accurate determination of the shape of the orbit.

During the course of our analysis we realised that to determine relativistic effects for S2 one definitely needs to know the full orbit to very high precision, comments Andreas Eckart, team leader at the University of Cologne.

As well as more precise information about the orbit of the star S2, the new analysis also gives the mass of the black hole and its distance from Earth to a higher degree of accuracy.

Co-author Vladimir Karas from the Academy of Sciences in Prague, the Czech Republic, is excited about the future:This opens up an avenue for more theory and experiments in this sector of science.

This analysis is a prelude to an exciting period for observations of the Galactic Centre by astronomers around the world. During 2018 the star S2 will make a very close approach to the supermassive black hole. This time theGRAVITY instrument, developed by a large international consortium led by the Max-Planck-Institut fr extraterrestrische Physik in Garching, Germany, and installed on the VLT Interferometer, will be available to help measure the orbit much more precisely than is currently possible. Not only is GRAVITY, which is already making high-precision measurements of the Galactic Centre, expected to reveal the general relativistic effects very clearly, but also it will allow astronomers to look for deviations from general relativity that might reveal new physics.

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Hint of relativity effects in stars orbiting centre of galaxy - Astronomy Now Online

Four Exoplanets Detected around Nearby Star Tau Ceti – Sci-News.com

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A multinational group of astronomers has detected four possible alien worlds circling tau Ceti, which is less than 12 light-years from our Solar System.

Artists illustration of a four-planet system. Image credit: Mark A. Garlick, University of Warwick / Space-art.co.uk.

Tau Ceti is a Sun-like star located just 11.9 light-years away, in the constellation Cetus.

Also known as 52 Ceti, HD 10700 and HIP 8102, the star is very similar to our Sun in its size and brightness, but it is not as active as the Sun.

In 2012, University of Hertfordshire astronomer Dr. Mikko Tuomi and co-authors announced the discovery of five potential planets in the tau Ceti system, labeled tau Ceti b, c, d, e and f.

In a new study, the same team confirmed the existence of tau Ceti e and f and detected two completely new planets, tau Ceti g and h.

We came up with an ingenious way of telling the difference between signals caused by planets and those caused by a stars activity, Dr. Tuomi explained.

We realized that we could see how a stars activity differed at different wavelengths, then used that information to separate this activity from signals of planets.

The four planets are all relatively small, with minimum masses less than 4 times that of Earth. They orbit tau Ceti once every 20, 49, 160 and 642 days, respectively.

Two of them tau Ceti e and f are located on the inner and outer edges of the habitable zone, respectively. They are likely to be candidate habitable worlds, although a massive debris disc around their host star probably reduces their habitability due to intensive bombardment by asteroids and comets.

This illustration compares the four planets detected around tau Ceti (top) and the inner planets of our Solar System (bottom). Image credit: F. Feng, University of Hertfordshire.

Tau Ceti e, f, g and h were detected by observing the wobbles in the movement of the parent star.

This required techniques sensitive enough to detect variations in the movement of the star as small as 30 cm per second.

We are getting tantalizingly close to the 10 cm per second limit required for detecting Earth analogs, said team member Dr. Fabo Feng, also from the University of Hertfordshire.

Our detection of such weak wobbles is a milestone in the search for Earth analogs and the understanding of the Earths habitability through comparison with these analogs.

We are now finally crossing a threshold where, through very sophisticated modeling of large combined data sets from multiple independent observers, we can disentangle the noise due to stellar surface activity from the very tiny signals generated by the gravitational tugs from Earth-sized orbiting planets, added team member Professor Steven Vogt, of the University of California, Santa Cruz.

The data were obtained by using the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) spectrograph, an instrument installed on the 3.6-m telescope at ESOs La Silla Observatory in Chile, combined with the High-Resolution Echelle Spectrometer (HIRES) at the W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea, Hawaii.

The teams findings will be published in a paper in the Astronomical Journal. The article is also publicly available at arXiv.org.

_____

Fabo Feng et al. 2017. Color difference makes a difference: four planet candidates around tau Ceti. AJ, in press; arXiv: 1708.02051

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Four Exoplanets Detected around Nearby Star Tau Ceti - Sci-News.com

NASA selects proposals to study galaxies, stars, planets – Phys.Org

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August 10, 2017 by Felicia Chou NASA has selected six astrophysics concept study proposals as part of the agencys Explorers Program. The proposed studies would study various emissions from galaxies, galaxy clusters, and neutron star systems, as well as exoplanet atmospheres, as a way to fill in the gaps between the agencys larger missions. Credit: NASA

NASA has selected six astrophysics Explorers Program proposals for concept studies. The proposed missions would study gamma-ray and X-ray emissions from clusters of galaxies and neutron star systems, as well as infrared emissions from galaxies in the early universe and atmospheres of exoplanets, which are planets outside of our solar system.

The selected proposals, three Medium-Class Explorers missions and three Explorers Missions of Opportunity, call for focused scientific investigations and developments of instruments that fill the scientific gaps between the agency's larger missions.

"The Explorers Program brings out some of the most creative ideas for missions to help unravel the mysteries of the universe," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "The program has resulted in great missions that have returned transformational science, and these selections promise to continue that tradition."

The proposals were selected based on potential science value and feasibility of development plans. After concept studies and detailed evaluations, one of each mission type will be selected by 2019 to proceed with construction and launch. The earliest launch date would be in 2022. Medium-Class Explorer mission costs are capped at $250 million each, excluding the launch vehicle, and Mission of Opportunity costs are capped at $70 million each.

Each astrophysics Medium-Class Explorer mission will receive $2 million to conduct a nine-month mission concept study. The selected proposals are:

Arcus: Exploring the Formation and Evolution of Clusters, Galaxies and Stars

Fast INfrared Exoplanet Spectroscopy Survey Explorer (FINESSE)

Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx): An All-Sky Spectral Survey

Missions of Opportunity will receive $500,000 to conduct a nine-month implementation concept study. The selected proposals are:

Compton Spectrometer and Imager Explorer (COSI-X), a Small Complete Superpressure Balloon Mission

Transient Astrophysics Observer on the International Space Station (ISS-TAO)

A Partner Mission of Opportunity (PMO) has been conditionally selected to provide detectors for the Fine Guidance Sensor assembly of the Atmospheric Remote Sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-Survey (ARIEL) missionone of three proposed missions currently under consideration by ESA (European Space Agency). The PMO would proceed with construction only if ARIEL is selected by ESA.

The conditionally-selected PMO is:

Contribution to ARIEL Spectroscopy of Exoplanets (CASE)

The Explorers Program is the oldest continuous NASA program designed to provide frequent, low-cost access to space using principal investigator-led space science investigations relevant to the Science Mission Directorate's astrophysics and heliophysics programs. Since the Explorer 1 launch in 1958, which discovered Earth's radiation belts, the Explorers Program has launched more than 90 missions, including the Uhuru and Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) missions that led to Nobel Prizes for their investigators.

The program is managed by Goddard for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, which conducts a wide variety of research and scientific exploration programs for Earth studies, space weather, the solar system, and the universe.

Explore further: NASA selects proposals to study neutron stars, black holes and more

More information: For information about NASA and space science, visit http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem

SA has selected five proposals submitted to its Explorers Program to conduct focused scientific investigations and develop instruments that fill the scientific gaps between the agency's larger missions.

NASA has selected nine proposals under its Explorers Program that will return transformational science about the sun and space environment and fill science gaps between the agency's larger missions; eight for focused scientific ...

NASA's Astrophysics Explorer Program has selected two missions for launch in 2017: a planet-hunting satellite and an International Space Station instrument to observe X-rays from stars.

NASA has selected Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) to further develop the concept for a small satellite mission to image the Sun's outer corona. SwRI's "Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere" (PUNCH) program ...

NASA has selected a science mission that will allow astronomers to explore, for the first time, the hidden details of some of the most extreme and exotic astronomical objects, such as stellar and supermassive black holes, ...

NASA has selected a science mission that will measure emissions from the interstellar medium, which is the cosmic material found between stars. This data will help scientists determine the life cycle of interstellar gas in ...

An asteroid the size of a house will shave past Earth at a distance of some 44,000 kilometres (27,300 miles) in October, inside the Moon's orbit, astronomers said Thursday.

(Phys.org)An international team of astronomers has discovered a Jupiter-mass alien world circling a giant star known as HD 208897. The newly detected exoplanet was found as a result of high-precision radial velocity measurements. ...

NASA's Cassini spacecraft will enter new territory in its final mission phase, the Grand Finale, as it prepares to embark on a set of ultra-close passes through Saturn's upper atmosphere with its final five orbits around ...

A bright Moon will outshine the annual Perseids meteor shower, which will peak Saturday with only a fifth the usual number of shooting stars visible to Earthlings, astronomers say.

Scientists have discovered why heavyweight galaxies living in a dense crowd of galaxies tend to spin more slowly than their lighter neighbours.

New evidence from ancient lunar rocks suggests that an active dynamo once churned within the molten metallic core of the moon, generating a magnetic field that lasted at least 1 billion years longer than previously thought. ...

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NASA selects proposals to study galaxies, stars, planets - Phys.Org

Use This App to Get the Most From the Coming Eclipse – Smithsonian

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Your eclipse glasses won't be the only tool to make this month's stellar phenomenon cool

smithsonian.com August 9, 2017 12:41PM

For a few dramatic minutes next month, the Sun will be blotted from the sky by the Moon passing in front of it. Some people have been planning for this rare North American solar eclipse for years, but if you're not sure of when, where or how to view it, there's an app for that.

The Smithsonian Solar Eclipse app, the first smartphone app ever released by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, was developed over the past few months to help bring the excitement of the August 21 eclipse to more people.

"Because it is so well positioned for an American audience, we thought it was a perfect opportunity to engage the public in some of the science that's going to happen," said Tyler Jump, marketing manager for the center.

The app will walk its users through the different types of solar eclipses and how they happen, including the difference between the annular eclipses that only partially block the Sun to the total eclipses that fully cover it, like the upcoming onewill.

For an even closer look, the app also curates images from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, a satellite with multiple sensors trained on our star. Before, during and after the eclipse, users of the app will be able to see views of the sun from space to complement their views from the ground, Jump said, and to see the dynamic surface of the Sun change. And the app has a section explaining the various satellites used by the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics to observe the Sun today and in the past and future.

Devoted eclipse chasers have been planning their trips to the narrow band of the continental United States where the Moon will totally block light from the sun for years, with some even taking special chartered flights that will follow the eclipse cross-country. But for the millions of Americans who are unable or unwilling to travel to see the total eclipse in person, the Smithsonian Solar Eclipse app will show a livestream from NASA of the views of the eclipse across America.

Even those not living in or traveling to the 70-mile-wide strip of totality will still see at least a partial solar eclipse next month, and the Smithsonian Solar Eclipse app will help people calculate how much of the sun will be blocked from their location and even show a simulation of what their view will look like.

And since viewing a solar eclipse without the proper equipment can be dangerous, the app also provides a guide to viewing one safely. For example, viewers can use pinhole cameras cut out of paper or made with their hands to project the image of the eclipse onto the ground to look at without eye protection.

If the app is well received, Jump says it's likely that this won't be the last educational space app from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

"We really hope that people engage and get excited about it," Jump said.

Download the app for iOS here or Android here.

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Use This App to Get the Most From the Coming Eclipse - Smithsonian

Scientists Probe the Conditions of Stellar Interiors to Measure Nuclear Reactions – Livermore Independent

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Most of the nuclear reactions that drive the nucleosynthesis of the elements in the universe occur in very extreme stellar plasma conditions. This intense environment found in the deep interiors of stars has made it nearly impossible for scientists to perform nuclear measurements in these conditions until now.

In a unique cross-disciplinary collaboration between the fields of plasma physics, nuclear astrophysics and laser fusion, a team of researchers including scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Ohio University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), describe experiments performed in conditions like those of stellar interiors. The teams findings were published by Nature Physics.

The experiments are the first thermonuclear measurements of nuclear reaction cross-sections a quantity that describes the probability that reactants will undergo a fusion reaction in high-energy-density plasma conditions that are equivalent to the burning cores of giant stars, i.e. 10-40 times more massive than the sun. These extreme plasma conditions boast hydrogen-isotope densities compressed by a factor of a thousand to near that of solid lead and temperatures heated to ~50 million Kelvin. These also are the conditions in stars that lead to supernovae, the most massive explosions in the universe.

Ordinarily, these kinds of nuclear astrophysics experiments are performed on accelerator experiments in the laboratory, which become particularly challenging at the low energies often relevant for nucleosynthesis, said LLNL physicist Dan Casey, the lead author on the paper. As the reaction cross-sections fall rapidly with decreasing reactant energy, bound electron screening corrections become significant, and terrestrial and cosmic background sources become a major experimental challenge.

The work was conducted at LLNLs National Ignition Facility (NIF), the only experimental tool in the world capable of creating temperatures and pressures like those found in the cores of stars and giant planets. Using the indirect drive approach, NIF was used to drive a gas-filled capsule implosion, heating capsules to extraordinary temperatures and compressing them to high densities where fusion reactions can occur.

One of the most important findings is that we reproduced prior measurements made on accelerators in radically different conditions, Casey said. This really establishes a new tool in the nuclear astrophysics field for studying various processes and reactions that may be difficult to access any other way.

Perhaps most importantly, this work lays groundwork for potential experimental tests of phenomena that can only be found in the extreme plasma conditions of stellar interiors. One example is of plasma electron screening, a process that is important in nucleosynthesis but has not been observed experimentally, Casey added.

Now that the team has established a technique to perform these measurements, related teams like that led by Maria Gatu Johnson at MIT are looking to explore other nuclear reactions and ways to attempt to measure the impact of plasma electrons on the nuclear reactions.

Casey was joined by co-authors Daniel Sayre, Vladimir Smalyuk, Robert Tipton, Jesse Pino, Gary Grim, Bruce Remington, Dave Dearborn, Laura (Robin) Benedetti, Robert Hatarik, Nobuhiko Izumi, James McNaney, Tammy Ma, Steve MacLaren, Jay Salmonson, Shahab Khan, Arthur Pak, Laura Berzak Hopkins, Sebastien LePape, Brian Spears, Nathan Meezan, Laurent Divol, Charles Yeamans, Joseph Caggiano, Dennis McNabb, Dean Holunga, Marina Chiarappa-Zucca, Tom Kohut and Thomas Parham from LLNL, Carl Brune from Ohio University, Johan Frenje and Maria Gatu Johnson from MIT and George Kyrala from LANL.

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Scientists Probe the Conditions of Stellar Interiors to Measure Nuclear Reactions - Livermore Independent

+/- Human review Is this the future of artificial intelligence? Bring it on – The Guardian

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Friendly or or a Dalek plot? Random Internationals Zoological, part of Wayne McGregors +/- Human Photograph: Ravi Deepres/Alicia Clarke

In Ren Magrittes surrealist painting La Voix des Airs (1931), three inscrutable spheres hover in an empty blue sky above green fields. Ive always wondered what these enigmatic objects really are. Do they come from outer space? Are they about to open and unleash a robot army? What strange message do they bring from their impersonal dimension?

At last I know, because I have met them. I have even danced with them. In the darkened heights of the Roundhouse in north London, a flying flock of white spheres that uncannily resemble Magrittes dream objects float intelligently and curiously, checking out the humans below, hovering downward to see us better. They are the most convincing embodiment of artificial intelligence I have ever seen. For these responsive, even sensitive machines truly create a sense of encounter with a digital life form that mirrors, or mocks, human free will.

They are the most convincing embodiment of artificial intelligence I have ever seen

Nobody is hidden behind a screen piloting this robotic airborne dance troupe. Each sphere has its own decision-making electronic brain. They fly in elegant unison yet also break ranks as they check their positions against the images recorded by infra-red cameras surrounding the circular space where they float and their human visitors walk. It is fitting to experience this eerily beautiful vision of the future in the steampunk setting of a Victorian railway building whose architectural grandeur evokes the first industrial revolution. It can feel like a Doctor Who episode come to life. What are those flying spheres, Doctor are they friendly or is this a Dalek plot?

Random International, the creators of this post-human visitation, have form in boggling minds. People queued for as long as four hours to get into their interactive installation the Rain Room at the Barbican in 2012. This deserves to be as popular and is arguably a lot more thought-provoking. Working with choreographer Wayne McGregor, whose dancers will perform with the ascendant orbs at weekends, these technologically adept art wizards extend the technology of drones to genuinely and movingly ponder the nature of life itself.

Looked at coldly, these devices are just inflated plastic balls whose movements are guided by rotors, like a toy drone. Yet the crucial fact that they guide themselves, mimicking conscious choice in their unplanned and to all intents and purposes spontaneous actions, is apparent without knowing anything about their design. You can tell by the way they move that they are free entities. Their behaviour is by turns entrancing and mildly menacing. They rise one after another from their resting positions in an upper gallery and calmly hover out into the open domed arena where their human guests are waiting. They are never at rest. As they glide in formation one or another is always changing its position, approaching the people below with what seems like curiosity. Then they all follow. It is when the entire swarm gathers directly above you that it suddenly becomes a threatening, sinister presence.

Surely science could learn a lot from this advanced work of art. McGregors understanding of dance is clearly as crucial as Random Internationals engineering ingenuity in creating what amounts to a fascinating illusion of life. Experiments in robotics often produce disturbing doll-faced machines and stilted conversationalist computers. Yet the true secret of copying life, this installation shows, lies in movement. Dance, the oldest human art, turns out to be a key to comprehending life itself, and reproducing it. The orbs dance with you. They locate and follow members of the audience, not with mechanical inevitability but a complex, gracious harmony. Making and breaking patterns, coming together and loosely floating apart, they dance with each other, too.

This artwork that opens visions of a future in which life evolves beyond biology itself.

Its alive! Its alive!, as Frankenstein would say. Ever since Mary Shelley wrote that novel in 1818, the fantasy of creating life, whether by re-animating dead flesh like her overweening scientist or, now, by building robots, has tended to fixate on the human form. We assume robots will walk and talk like us. This installation demonstrates how very different a future of digital intelligence may look. Far from resembling the human, these entities are completely alien. They have no faces, voices or limbs. They do have openings underneath through which their machinery can be glimpsed. Marcel Duchamp as well as Magritte would recognise their post-human grace. In his masterpiece The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even, left unfinished in 1923, a large panel of glass carries images of a floating mechanical bride and chocolate-grinding male admirers. Duchamp imagined a future where the organic and inorganic are one. He would be entranced by this artwork that opens visions of a future in which life evolves beyond biology itself. When our robot great-grandchildren drift in great electronic herds to the stars, this is what it may look like. That wont be such a bad legacy for us to leave.

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+/- Human review Is this the future of artificial intelligence? Bring it on - The Guardian

DIY Artificial Intelligence Comes to a Japanese Family Farm – The New Yorker

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Not much about Makoto Koikes adult life suggests that he would be a farmer. Trained as an engineer, he spent most of his career in a busy urban section of Aichi Prefecture, Japan, near the headquarters of the Toyota Motor Corporation, writing software to control cars. Koikes longtime hobby is tinkering with electronic kits and machines; he is not naturally an outdoorsy type. Yet, in 2014, at the age of thirty-three, he left his job and city life to move to his parents cucumber farm, in the greener prefecture of Shizuoka. I thought I was getting old, Koike told me. I wanted to be close to my home and my family.

The Koikes have been growing cucumbers in Kosai, a town wedged between the Pacific Ocean and the brackish Lake Hamana, for nearly fifty years. Their crop, which fills three small greenhouses, grows year-round. Koikes father, Harumi, plants the seeds; Koike oversees their cultivation; and his mother, Masako, sorts the harvest. This last job is particularly important in Japan, which is famously discerning about its produce. Nice strawberries can fetch several dollars apiece in some markets, and a sublime cubic watermelon can go for hundreds. Vegetables hold a less privileged place than fruits, but supermarkets rarely stock produce that is at all irregular in shape or size. The Koikes send their better cucumbers, the ones that are straight and uniform in thickness, to wholesalers. The not-so-perfect ones go to local stands, where they are sold at half price. (They taste the same, Koike said.) Masako judges the vegetables one by one, separating them into bins. Though she devotes only half a second to each cucumber, the task takes up most of her work time; on some days, she goes through around four thousand of them.

The laborious process of categorizing the cucumbers had remained essentially the same for decades, until last spring, when Koike began developing a new approach. It was inspired, in part, by articles he read about AlphaGo , the first computer program ever to beat a human master of the game of Go. Developed by Google DeepMind , the program relied on deep learning, a method for making computations by arranging basic processing units into complex, layered networks, rather like the way that billions of neurons work together to produce the incomparable (for now) intelligence of the human brain. In the past several years, deep learning has proved exceptionally useful for finding patterns in big piles of data; it has been incorporated into Facebooks facial-recognition algorithms, Amazon Alexas language processing , and autonomous cars navigation systems. In AlphaGos case, the program was fed thirty million images of positions from real games, which it used to help determine which kinds of moves work best. Koike hoped that a similar strategy might help him sort his familys cucumbers.

Makoto Koike with his parents, Harumi and Masako, at the familys cucumber farm, in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. The Koikes have been growing cucumbers for nearly fifty years.

Advanced A.I. techniques, including deep learning, have traditionally been the province of specialized researchers and moneyed software companies. Recently, though, some of the tech worlds biggest playersincluding Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, Yahoo, Baidu, Yandex, and various universitieshave released free, open-source versions of their tools, making A.I. accessible to small-time programmers who arent well-versed in the field, such as Koike. For his project, he used TensorFlow, which Google released to the public in 2015. He began by building a custom photo stand, which allowed him to photograph each cucumber from three angles. Then, to analyze the images, he adapted a popular piece of TensorFlow software used for recognizing handwritten numerals. Before he could turn the A.I. loose, though, Koike had to train it. He captured seven thousand photos of cucumbers that his mother had already sorted, then used the data to teach his software to recognize which vegetables belonged in which categories. Finally, he built an automated conveyor-belt system to move each cucumber from the photo stand to the bin designated by the program.

Koike completed his machine last year, and it worksto some degree. It sorts cucumbers with an accuracy of seventy per cent, which is low enough that they must subsequently be checked by hand. Whats more, the vegetables still need to be placed on the photo stand one by one. Koikes mother, in other words, is in no immediate danger of being replaced, and thus far, she and her husband are none too impressed. They are quite severe, Koike said. Oh, its not useful yet, they tell him. Tech enthusiasts, meanwhile, have had decidedly more positive reactions, and Koike has been invited to events such as the Maker Faire, in Tokyo, and the CeBIT expo, in Hanover, Germany. There are machines that work better and faster than Koikes, but they are industrial-sized and -priced affairs. Before the democratization of deep learning, it would have been difficult for someone like him to design such an effective device himself.

Koike sees his system as an encouraging proof of concept, and he is currently at work on a new version, which he hopes will be capable of analyzing more than one cucumber at a time. He also plans to build a gentler conveyor system, to preserve the fragile prickles on the vegetables skin, which are considered a sign of freshness. He expects that, within a few years, his A.I. sorter will be nearly as accurate as his mother, freeing her up to do something else. Either way, he told me, he is back in Kosai for the long haul. Thats the plan, he said. Ill probably die as a farmer. By the time that happens, the work may look very different.

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DIY Artificial Intelligence Comes to a Japanese Family Farm - The New Yorker

Facts Related To Artificial Intelligence – Customer Think

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I am non-technical by education, but my passion revolves only around technology, and specifically to Artificial Intelligence. Yeah, it sounds more like relating yourself to Steven Spielberg Sci-Fi, wherein everything could be controlled with just a tap or the retina identification, although most of these aspects discussed in the movie are quite possible now, just due to the invasion of Artificial Intelligence in our lives.

What Is AI- Artificial Intelligence

As a layman, it is hard to understand the real mechanism of AI since it would be a glut of high technical language, which may bounce back, so in a plain language, AI stands for that idea, where certain machines are developed in a way that they can think like humans. Just to illustrate further Siri in your iPhone to those self-driving cars, all are the products of Artificial Intelligence. Lets take a look at some of the facts related to AI Taking Care of Daily Chores

We all have to perform certain tasks in our daily routine, which are too obvious but needs to be accomplished daily in personal and professional lives. Such mundane tasks can easily be performed through AI and it increases the chances of enhanced productivity rate of humans.

No Ground For Errors

When I talk about errors then, I simply get a very particular aspect in my mind that is Human Error, which at times, devastates the end result brutally. But AI integrated devices never make mistakes and is programmed in such way that leaves no scope for errors, regardless of the data size.

Saving Humans To Take risks

Curiosity is a part of human nature and to satiate it further, we risk our lives, for instance, the space exploration has always been on the top list of man curiosity chart, but the number of risks involved in it makes it dangerous enough. But this exploration is very much possible with the AI support, which can travel across the landscape of space, exploring it and determining the best paths to take. This indeed is a great step to discover the potential benefits for human civilization.

Virtual Reality For Education

The AI is beneficial for several business domains, and the education industry would take the maximum benefits out of it through the integration of VR assisted learning. This type of learning would open the doors for the students and they can learn and explore the topics more deeply.

AI Is A Blessing For Health Care Industry

AI in healthcare and the medical field is creating a sensation by organizing the better treatment plans for patients and help the medical experts to make the best-suited decision for the patients.

These are some of the benefits Artificial Intelligence is offering to the society, and these numbers of benefits are going to rise exponentially with the demand and future inventions in the near future, although many people argue that AI would consume the jobs of people, but this is not correct, since AI has its own limitations, which can never replace the humans.

On the other hand, if you are looking for a mobile app for your business, you must reach Techugo- a top mobile app development company, wherein we work on different ideology of honesty woven in our work process, and unlike our competitors, we believe in crafting the success journey for our clients and impeccable app experience for their end-users. At Techugo, we take pride in developing the mobile apps for the leading brands to startups and our mobile app development team has the expertise to create a unique variety of mobile app solution for your business needs, which would help you to showcase your idea, goal, and dream in the most informative and engaging way.

Our team of top mobile app designers is here to help assist you with every step of your mobile app development strategy. We love to create the successful mobile apps for your business, which can help you to climb the success ladder further, we consult, brainstorm, manage the project, design, develop, test, launch, and market apps in the best possible way. You can get in touch with our team to discuss further your concept to bring into reality. The discussion would help you to gain a better insight of your app requirement.

AnkitSingh

Techugo Pvt. Ltd.

In his role of Business Head, Ankit offers a helping hand to those, who are looking to build apps. He dedicates his passion in committing the vision of clients and goal of the project simultaneously and he loves to share his writing skills through blog and article writing.

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Facts Related To Artificial Intelligence - Customer Think

When artificial intelligence and human resources intersect – TechTarget

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Brandon Wirtz was supposed to be a fifth-generation teacher. Indeed, the founder and CEO of artificial intelligence engine developer Recognant is a teacher -- of robots, not people -- and not the factory floor variety of bots, either. Instead, Wirtz sees AI changing a very human process: human resources.

To reach the place where artificial intelligence and HR meet, Wirtz spends his days educating his various AIs about everything from how to order pizza to what an appropriate pickup line might be. His bots -- "Loki," "Lobby" and "Molly" -- are at different stages of independence and aptitude. Loki, who identifies as female, is perhaps Wirtz's favorite bot -- and the most likely to drive him crazy with questions.

The games Wirtz plays with Loki -- "I Spy" is a particular favorite -- might seem frivolous, but they serve as the basis for the bot's education in how humans think and communicate. And though it may seem unimportant that Loki understands Santa Claus, zombies and Instagram, all of that matters when it comes to artificial intelligence and human resources if she -- or a bot like her -- is going to work in HR dealing with prospective employees. "I know this seems creepy, but it isn't," Wirtz laughed.

In his world view, Wirtz believes HR is largely broken and AI is going to fix it. "One of the biggest problems in HR is that you have an interviewer, and they know nothing about the particular job they're hiring for," he explained. "Lots of times, an HR person is faking knowledge about the job, so they don't know enough to know what keywords to be listening for."

An AI is not very good at making jokes, but it can tell when a human has made a joke, and that can help [the bot] decide whether someone has the right personality for the job.

Even if a bot has never heard of, say, Photoshop, it can quickly search the internet and arm itself with enough information to know if an applicant using Corel Draw may lack the necessary experience, Wirtz said. "The AI doesn't have to understand the conversation but can pass the transcription on to the hiring manager and indicate this was not an acceptable answer," he added. "AI is a way to get deeper interactions with interviewees, and it doesn't matter what they talk about because the AI is an expert or at least a jack-of-all-trades."

A robot might have a more in-depth interview with a job applicant, while showing no bias toward the candidate, Wirtz reasoned. "Sometimes it comes down to 'This candidate reminds me of someone I didn't like in high school,' or 'This person and I have bonded over the same hobby,'" he suggested. "Computers don't have these biases." However, they can be programmed to search for applicant biases, such as racially derogative messages posted on social media. And with the right training, a bot can even help sort out the very subtle human characteristics like emotional intelligence, sense of humor and even ambition, Wirtz said. "An AI is not very good at making jokes, but it can tell when a human has made a joke, and that can help [the bot] decide whether someone has the right personality for the job."

If you're dubious about artificial intelligence and human resources, you're far from alone, but Wirtz has an answer for skeptics. "A well-trained AI will listen, and humans really don't," he asserted. "Say you are looking to hire a test engineer. That's a job without a lot of upward mobility. So you want to hire someone who's going to be happy to stay a test engineer. An AI will analyze how many times the person used the future tense and that's key information that a human would more than likely have missed."

Yet that kind of human analysis is only possible when bots are patiently taught by someone who understands the building blocks of AI. Although Wirtz started coding at the age of 7, he took a hiatus from that for several years to be a YMCA camp counselor before returning to software development. He worked on mind simulation products, which provided key training in psychology and understanding how the human brain works. He then moved on to AI-based content creators.

"I was trying to 'game' Google and create content for fun and profit that wasn't great but didn't suck, either," he acknowledged. "So I learned about content creation, fact extraction and knowledge building." Those were the tools that formed the basis for Loki and her AI colleagues at Recognant and what Wirtz hopes will foster a new approach to artificial intelligence and human resources.

Thanks to AI, applying blindly for a job will become a thing of the past, Wirtz predicted. Instead, a chatbot will appear right after the application is submitted online and strike up a conversation with the applicant. That prescreening exchange will provide the hiring manager with immediate information about the applicant; the applicant may receive feedback from the hiring manager as well.

"From spelling errors to subject knowledge to attitude, an AI can ask and record this exchange," Wirtz said. "If this works, we can get rid of the biases, the emphasis on education instead of experience and a lot more unknowns. And it really is starting to happen today."

Does AI really have a role in business?

Do you need HR management software?

A primer on AI in HR

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When artificial intelligence and human resources intersect - TechTarget

The artificial intelligence revolution is coming and right now, Silicon Valley holds the power – ABC Online

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Posted August 10, 2017 07:02:33

In the argument between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, it's hard to know which side to join. Both of them are right. Or, if you like, both of them are wrong.

Musk is wrong to worry about artificial intelligence (AI) being a threat to humanity, so I agree with Zuckerberg. And Zuckerberg is wrong to dismiss all concerns about AI, so I agree with Musk. But neither of them are worrying about the right things.

AI is transforming almost every aspect of our lives, from the workspace to the political arena. You can't open a newspaper today without reading a story about some impressive advance in AI.

Are machines taking over people's jobs? Are algorithms having an impact on political debate? Will robots transform warfare? Are we sleepwalking into some dystopian future?

First, let's put to rest Elon Musk's worry. The machines aren't about to take over the world anytime soon. Those of us working on building intelligent machines appreciate how much of a challenge remains. We're not going to wake up anytime soon and discover the machines are in charge.

Most of my colleagues working in AI estimate it is at least 50 years before we can build machines as smart as humans. And when we do, it's not inevitable they'll be able to make themselves even smarter still.

So, there is plenty of time to ensure the machines are working in our best interests. And there's a healthy community of researchers working on the topic of "AI safety" to ensure that outcome.

But that doesn't mean we can simply put our feet up and wait for the bright future. There's a lot to worry about. Some AI is smart, some is stupid. We're starting to give responsibility to algorithms that aren't actually very intelligent.

Joshua Brown discovered this to his cost in May last year. He was immortalised as the first person killed by their autonomous car. His Tesla was driving down the highway in "autopilot mode" when it hit a truck turning across the road. Mr Brown had too much faith in the technology.

Another worry is the impact AI is having on political discourse. When millions of Donald Trump's Twitter followers are robots, you have to worry if human voices are being drowned out by computers. If the news you see on Facebook is decided by algorithms, who decides on the biases in these algorithms?

A third worry is the impact AI will have on the workforce. There's no fundamental law of economics that requires new technologies to create more jobs than they destroy, which has been the case so far. There are more people working today than ever, and unemployment is at historically low levels.

But this time could be different. In the Industrial Revolution, machines took over much manual labour but left us with many cognitive tasks. In the AI revolution, machines will take over many of these cognitive tasks. What is left for us?

The Industrial Revolution offers us a good historical precedent for dealing with change like this. Before the industrial revolution, many people worked out in the fields. After the Industrial Revolution, machines took over many of these jobs. And new jobs were created in offices and factories.

But we needed to make some significant changes to society to deal with this transition.

We invented universal education so people were educated for these new jobs. We invented labour laws and unions so the owners of the production didn't exploit their workers. We invented a welfare state and pensions so all of us shared the increased wealth. We made some deep, structural changes to society so everyone shared the benefits of increasing productivity.

These changes didn't happen overnight. Indeed, there were 50 years or so of pain before many workers saw their quality of life lift above what is was before the Industrial Revolution.

This then is the challenge we face today except the AI revolution will likely happen even faster than the Industrial Revolution. For this reason, we need more regulation.

Many tech companies like Facebook and Google are driven by opaque algorithms and are increasingly impacting on our lives in undesirable ways.

Facebook is now the largest news organisation on the planet, yet it doesn't have the same responsibilities as the traditional press.

Google is starting to know too much about our lives, and will need to be broken into parts to prevent it becoming a monopoly. Actually, by creating the holding company Alphabet, Larry Page and Sergey Brin have made the regulators' job much easier.

And it's hard to know where to begin with Uber, one of the most badly behaved of them all.

If Google or other companies won't pay taxes, then more countries besides Australia and the UK need to make a Google tax to force them to do so.

Silicon Valley can't wash its hands of the responsibility that comes with immense reach.

For too long, we (and our governments) have been seduced by the promises spun by technologists.

AI is one of the few hopes for tackling many of the problems that challenge us today like climate change and the ongoing global financial crisis.

But with immense power comes responsibility.

Toby Walsh is the Scientia Professor of AI at the University of New South Wales and the author of It's Alive!: Artificial Intelligence from the Logic Piano to Killer Robots.

Topics: robots-and-artificial-intelligence, science-and-technology, australia

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The artificial intelligence revolution is coming and right now, Silicon Valley holds the power - ABC Online

Will Artificial Intelligence Be Illegal in Europe Next Year? – Entrepreneur

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Many people wonder why Europe is so keen to protect peoples privacy. The reason dates back from WWII, when French and German governments used centralized citizen files to target, and subsequently deport, Jews and other ethnic minorities. Following this, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights included an entire article about the right to privacy, which gave birth to many laws in European countries. The demand for uniform privacy regulations across the continent leads us to the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which will take effect in May 2018.

Related: FBI: Your Kids' Internet Connected Toys Might Be Spying on Them

In a nutshell, the GDPR forces companies offering a product or service to a European citizen to follow Privacy by Design principles. It doesnt matter where in the world they are headquartered; if they want to do business in Europe, they will need to comply. The penalty for failing to do so is up to 4 percentof global turnover, which could amount to billions of dollars for large companies. This is why over 93 percentof US companies made this their top legal priority in 2017.

Although the GDPR applies to any use of personal data (defined as data that can identify someone directly or indirectly), it poses major challenges to artificial intelligence in particular, as machine learning algorithms often rely on user data to learn to do things.

In the GDPR there are four principles that makes it virtually impossible to do AI as commonly practiced:

Companies will now have to ask for consent in simple terms, rather than buried in legalese terms and conditions. This creates many challenges, in particular for cloud-based voice assistants. Voice is considered to be personal data, therefore devices that listen ambiently should in theory ask everyone in the room for consent before sending their voice to the cloud. Imagine the nightmare of having 10 people over for dinner, and having your Google Home device asking each of them for consent! One way to solve this is to process the user voice directly on the device instead of sending it to the cloud, therefore avoiding the need for explicit consent.

Related: These Companies Are 'Falling Short' on User Privacy

This means that anyone can ask for their personal data to be completely deleted. While this may be easy for a user account in a database, what happens when the data was used to train a machine learning algorithm? One might argue that the user data is still present in the form of outlier nodes in the neural network, and thus that they havent been forgotten.The easiest way to solve this would be to retrain the models without the user data, which is a quite costly process. A better approach would be to find algorithms that can unlearn specific inputs without retraining over the entire dataset.

Related: 3 Reasones Why Privacy Matters to Your Business, Your Brand and Your Future

I love this one because it means European residents will be able to access all the data a company has about them, and transfer it to another provider. The regulation states that the data subject can ask for her personal data to be transferred directly to a new provider, without hindrance, and in a machine readable format. Just like you can switch mobile providers while keeping your phone number, you will be able to switch social networks or search engines without any loss of data. This breaks the personal data lock-in that many services are using to keep us captive. It also opens the door to a massive data exodus when companies mess up: They would lose their data and hence their ability to train their AIs, while new providers would gain more data and thus improve their own AIs. In effect, it would speed up the demise of bad companies by creating an exponentially increasing gap when people switch over.

Related: Beyond the Privacy Fine Print: Making Privacy More Transparent

This one is particularly tricky, as it states that European residents have a right to explanation when an automated decision was made about them. The logic behind it is to avoid discrimination and implicit bias by enabling people to go to court if they feel unfairly treated. But, this would also effectively prohibit the use of deep learning, since it is currently a black box. Many researchers are working on explaining how neural networks make decisions, as this will be a requirement before we can hope for AI to enter areas such as medicine or law.

While the above regulations certainly introduce some new problems for those working in AI, the GDPR also creates a lot of opportunity -- by giving people control over their data, while breaking digital monopolies that prevent innovation beyond incumbent companies.

More than just ethically beneficial for Europe, the GDPR is also a way to reclaim digital territory, and make companies all around the world start respecting a fundamental human right that they have been ignoring for 70 years: privacy.

Rand Hindi is the founder and CEO of Snips, one of the first AI voice platforms for connected devices that offers privacy by design. Hindi was named a TR35 by MIT Technology Review, a Forbes "30 under 30" and is member of the Fren...

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Will Artificial Intelligence Be Illegal in Europe Next Year? - Entrepreneur

Automotive, Aerospace Materials on AutoVision Conference Agenda – WEKU

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Automobile executives fromacross Kentuckyand beyondhave been briefedthis weekon many facets affecting their industryduring the annual Autovision conference in Lexington.

Among the topics has been materials used in building todaysvehicles.

Larry Brown is director of Detroit-based Lightweight Innovations For Tomorrow or LIFT, a public-private non-profit partnership.

Brown says, in vehicle construction, its all about finding the right material for the right place.

We can selectively put the right materials where we see the highest loads, whether its crash or what have you in the right place, said Brown. So, at the end of the day we do result in lightweight solutions and we do not compromise the safety of the vehicle.

In his presentation, Brown spoke of aluminum, magnesium, and titanium as well as steel and hybrid materials.

Presentations did not focus exclusively on four-wheeled vehiclesonthe ground. Brown touched on aerospace applications in addressing auto executives.

He says moving to lighter construction materials for aircraft can affect both commercial and military operations.

Brown says the aerospace industry may be a little more aggressive than the automotive business in going after newer materials and paying a little more. Kentuckyrankssecond place nationallyinaerospace exports.

The LIFT executive says a program initiated this past spring aims to help military personnel move from the armed services to manufacturing jobs.

We launched that with the idea to reach out to military that we know are going to be separating in the next six months and start a training program that they could start to get into now, noted Brown. So, that once they leave the gates of Fort Campbell, theres a job, theres an opportunity lined up for them.

Brown concluded his remarks noting that the perception of manufacturing jobs being dirty and dangerous remains alive and well today. But the LIFT executive says manufacturing is moving every day into a more high tech profession.

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Automotive, Aerospace Materials on AutoVision Conference Agenda - WEKU

Indiana aerospace takes off – The Herald Bulletin

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Indiana is perhaps best known for its Hoosier hospitality and endless fields of corn. Few know the state is also home to a thriving aerospace industry. Thats right rockets.

In 2016, Indiana was ranked sixth in the nation as one of the most attractive states for aerospace manufacturing, according to a report from PricewaterhouseCoopers. Just one year before, it was ranked 18th.

It is an under-recognized, maybe underappreciated, sector of Indianas economy, said Ryan Metzing, executive director of the Indiana Aerospace & Defense Council.

Aerospace, as defined by Metzing, is a broad industry comprised of companies that design, manufacture or service various types of aircraft. Aerospace technologies range from military to commercial use, developing drones, aircraft and satellites.

Statewide, were seeing growth, he said. I think the commercial aerospace aviation sector is doing really well. That sector is projecting huge growth over the next 10 years or so.

With aircraft orders lined up for the next decade, Metzing believes Indianas aerospace industry is poised for success.

I think a lot of it has to do with some of the investment that had been going on here, he added. All of the deals over the past three or four years brought in more than $1 billion of investment in Indiana.

Rolls-Royce and Alcoa, two of the states largest aerospace companies, made significant investments in 2015. Rolls-Royce dedicated $600 million for redevelopment at its Indianapolis location, while Alcoa doubled its capacity after starting construction on a new jet engine parts facility in La Porte.

Collectively, the companies employ almost 9,000 Hoosiers. Many of those, Metzing noted, are experienced manufacturers.

Indiana has the strongest manufacturing workforce per capita in the nation more than 17 percent, he said. When you take how strong we are in manufacturing in general, and then marry that with some of these major aerospace investments that helped to boost our ranking.

New frontiers

Anderson inventor Pete Bitar isnt surprised Indiana is ranked so high on the list. Bitar created AirBuoyant, an aerospace company that specializes in personal flight. In his 11 years of experience, hes watched Indianas aerospace industry transform.

Were starting to see things like Amazon delivering packages with drones, electric vehicles that you fly in an urban environment, Bitar said. Youre seeing these new frontiers develop based on the new technologies and capabilities from the market today that werent there five to seven years ago.

But Bitar isnt completely satisfied with Indianas recent success.

We dont have a lot of headquartered aerospace companies in Indiana, he pointed out. Thats the challenge looking forward. And Im hoping in some small way I can contribute to that.

Though his local business is small, Bitar hopes he can be an example to prove its possible to come up with innovative ideas and keep them close to home.

Were developing an electric jet pack for personal flight that you can wear and fly around in, with no fuel, he said. If we can develop what Im developing and manufacturing here in Madison County, that can then be applied to other companies and other ideas coming through in the aerospace field.

Metzing agreed having a diverse aerospace industry across the state will be beneficial in the long run, no matter the company's size.

It provides a nice opportunity to grow some of those smaller communities, Metzing said, if we can get the aerospace companies to continue their growth.

Contact Katie Stancombe at 765-648-4258 or katie.stancombe@indianamediagroup.com.

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Indiana aerospace takes off - The Herald Bulletin

Aerospace Combat Command Instead of Space Force? – Breaking Defense

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Over the past two years, Americas near-peer competitors have reorganized and integrated their air, deterrent, missile defense, cyber and space forces to make them more effective.

But U.S. competitors arent just reorganizing; they are building and fielding capabilities that create new vulnerabilities for the U.S. in space. As Gen. Jay Raymond, head of Air Force Space Command said in recent testimony:In the not too distant future, near-peer competitors will have the ability to hold every U.S. space asset in every orbital regime at risk.

Dissatisfied with the speed of the Air Forces response to these challenges, House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee Chair Mike Rogers and Ranking Member Jim Cooper have proposed (and the full House has adopted) a semi-independent Space Force within the Air Force Department in the House version of the fiscal 2018 National Defense Authorization Act.

In a joint statement, Chairman Rogers and Rep. Cooper say:There is bipartisan acknowledgement that the strategic advantages we derive from our national security space systems are eroding We are convinced that the Department of Defense is unable to take the measures necessary to address these challenges effectively and decisively, or even recognize the nature and scale of its problems.

Congressional frustration with the Air Force is understandable. After years of Air Force underinvestment in the basics of access to space, the United States depends on Russian engines to get national security satellites into space. To make matters worse, U.S. satellites often run into technical challenges and cost overruns that delay them for years. And when they finally arrive in orbit, they are increasingly vulnerable.

Russian-made RD-180 engines propel an Atlas V rocket heavenward.

In addition, after years of failed investment in reusable launch systems designed to lower the cost of access to space, the Air Force left it to the private sector to solve the challenges of inventing a practical, reusable first stage.

But the best response to todays challenges may not be the creation of a separate and weaker Space Corps, one carved out of a diminished Air Force and authorized by statute to focus mainly on making space safe for satellites.

History suggests that integrated operations and unity of command are much better than stovepiping in successful military operations.

Instead of a separate Space Corps, Congress and the Trump Administration should consider an integrated United States Aerospace Force with new capabilities derived from American industry allowing it to affordably and routinely cross the boundary between air and space.

Industrys recent success with the launch, landing and reuse of Mach 3 to Mach 10 rocket vehicles indicates it can provide this capability, given the right focus from national leadership.

With reusable launch vehicles and higher flight rates driving the cost of access to space down, an Aerospace Force would have far less incentive to raid space accounts to buy air platforms, addressing Chairman Rogers concern that the Air Forces current organization force[s] space to compete with F-35s.

This would not be the first time the US military has needed help from the private sector. In the early 1930s, Boeing leapfrogged the capabilities of contemporary Army Air Corps aircraft when it introduced new aerodynamic and technical features into commercial airliners for the first time in the Boeing 247 with its all-metal flush-rivet semi-monocoque construction, fully cantilevered wing, and retractable landing gear.

These technologies were developed for commercial reasons not in answer to military requirements but after the Air Corps poor performance in the Air Mail crisis and the Baker Boards recommendations to the Corps in 1934, the War Department leveraged these commercial advances directly into warfighting capability through the acquisition of aircraft such as the Boeing 299 (B-17 bomber), the DC-2 (B-18 bomber) and the DC-3 (C-47 military transport).

These aircraft, whose basic technologies were developed by industry for the purpose of transporting civilians safely and profitably, became the backbone of military and civilian aviation through World War II and beyond.

This can be done again today, by

A revitalized United States Aerospace Force could:

This would require bold vision and leadership from the Air Force, comparable to the leadership shown by its leaders at the services birth. The Air Force has shown that it can rise to any challenge from the Berlin Airlift forward to the Persian Gulf especially with the right encouragement and leadership from the Congress and the White House.

Bill Bruner, a former NASA assistant administrator and fellow in the Speakers Office under Newt Gingrich, is CEO of New Frontier Aerospace, a space technology development and consulting company.He is a retired Air Force colonel.

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Aerospace Combat Command Instead of Space Force? - Breaking Defense