New America unveils a fellowship aimed at building public interest technology ‘ecosystem’ – FedScoop

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The New America Foundation is looking to get public interestorganizations and technologists talking to, and learning from, oneanother. Thats the impetus behind the think tanksPublic Interest Technology Fellows program, the first cohort of which was announced on Wednesday.

The Public Interest Tech Team is looking to build an ecosystem for the field of public interest technology, much in the same way that the country created the field of public interest law a generation ago, New America President and CEO Anne-Marie Slaughter said in a statement.

Whats public interest technology? Asthe name suggests, it entails using tech to help public interest organizations like those that focus on the environment, criminal justice or human rights serve people better.

Its a topic thats attracted aroster of 15 participants for 2017, includingMarina Stone Martin, former CTO of the Department of Veterans AffairsandRaphael Majma, former director of the Department of States digital services team. Other fellows come to the tablewithprivate sector tech backgrounds at companies like Facebook and Google.

The cohortwill work with New Americas permanent Public Interest Technology teamled by Cecilia Muoz,former director of the White House Domestic Policy Council under President Obama. Theyll work to influence demand for technology expertise among public interest organizations by building concrete examples that show the transformative impact of bringing technologists onto their teams.

This first group of fellowswill focus on projects inthree key topic areas:immigration, foster care systems and the intersection of criminal justice and mental health services. For example, fellowJeremiah Lindemann, of geographic information system (GIS) mapping software company Esri, will work with local government to use data to map the opioid epidemic.

Thethink tanks public interest tech team is supported by grants from the Ford Foundation and LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman, according to a press release.

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Harvesting Innovate4Climate, The Reborn Carbon Expo – Ecosystem Marketplace

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29 June 2017 | While the Trump Show has transfixed most media, Ecosystem Marketplace is continuing to focus on solutions to the climate challenge in part by participating in the Innovate4Climate Summit in Barcelona as a media partner.

Innovate4Climate is the re-launch of Carbon Expo, which ran for 13 years and focused narrowly on carbon markets. The first edition of the new event ran from the 22nd through the 25th of May in Barcelona, with the second iteration coming next May in Frankfurt. It

Weve already harvested that meeting for three stories, and will be bringing you at least five more in July and August. If you missed the stores weve done so far, just click on the headers below:

This story ran on June 23 and focused on aviator Bertrand Piccards new Efficient Climate Solutions initiative. You can hear the accompanying podcast at Bionic-Planet.com.

This story ran on June 14 and looked at Mootral, a new supplement that can reduce methane emissions from cows by being mixed into their feed. explicitly mentioning Innovate4Climate. You can hear the accompanying podcast at Bionic-Planet.com also explicitly mentions Innovate4Climate.

This story ran on May 30 and focuses on reports that Ecosystem Marketplace and the International Emissions Trading Association released at Innovate4Climate. You can also listen to the accompanying podcast at Bionic-Planet.com.

We still have at least five stories in the works including an in-depth interview with impact investors Richard Fronapfel and Noelle-Claire LeCann, who are funneling more than $100 million into sustainable agriculture, as well as interviews with Andrew Mitchell of the Global Canopy Programme, Charlotte Streck of Climate Focus, and Femi Oke of Al Jazeera.

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Harvesting Innovate4Climate, The Reborn Carbon Expo - Ecosystem Marketplace

Big question: Who gets the blame if a cyborg drops a kid on its head? – The Register

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Who is responsible if a robot controlled by a human brain drops, say, a baby?

It's a bizarre question, but one worth asking, according to scientists who raise a host of ethical and social questions around brain-machine interfaces (BMI) in the policy forum in Science.

Research in this area begun in the 1970s when the US military research arm DARPA entertained the possibilities of using human brains to control devices. The idea has now gone mainstream, with Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Neuralink's CEO Elon Musk investing in neural laces, capable of merging man and machine together as cyborgs.

"Brainjacking" can potentially be a serious issue, the researchers said. Facebook is aiming to create a system that "can type 100 words per minute straight from your brain." Data about brain activity needs to be protected if it can potentially reveal sensitive information and communications.

Professor Niels Birbaumer, co-author of the paper and a senior Research Fellow at the Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering in Geneva, Switzerland, said in a statement: "The protection of sensitive neuronal data from people with complete paralysis who use a BMI as their only means of communication, is particularly important. Successful calibration of their BMI depends on brain responses to personal questions provided by the family (for example, "Your daughter's name is Emily?").

"Strict data protection must be applied to all people involved. This includes protecting the personal information asked in questions as well as the protection of neuronal data to ensure the device functions correctly."

Autonomy is another tricky area back to the baby question. If a human used a semi-autonomous robot to pick up a baby and the bot accidentally dropped it, who is to blame? Presuming you could stop the robot before it lost its grip on a baby, the authors propose an emergency stop function in all autonomous systems controlled via brain-machine interactions.

It's a solution similar to what has been proposed for AI agents by DeepMind and the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford.

John Donoghue, co-author of the paper and director of the Wyss Center, said, "Although we still don't fully understand how the brain works, we are moving closer to being able to reliably decode certain brain signals.

"We shouldn't be complacent about what this could mean for society. We must carefully consider the consequences of living alongside semi-intelligent brain-controlled machines, and we should be ready with mechanisms to ensure their safe and ethical use."

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Big question: Who gets the blame if a cyborg drops a kid on its head? - The Register

Sarasota County plans for trash buildup on beaches over Independence Day holiday weekend – ABC Action News

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SARASOTA COUNTY, Fla - Heading into the Independence Day holiday weekend, officials want beach goers to remember a viral video taken 24 hours after Memorial day, before throwing their trash anywhere but the trash can.

Kendrick Rowland had never been to Siesta Beach before. He and his family packed a cooler full of food. The bags inside will be used for trash when they are finished.

"Nothing is fun about tarnishing something that is as beautiful," he said. "I just can't wrap my mind around that."

It is this viral video after Memorial Day he is talking about.

It is also why Sarasota County is putting more trash cans out and giving away free bright yellow trash bags to help contain the nearly two tons of garbage they pick up on holiday weekends.

You may wonder if that extra effort by the county to keep the beach clean is working. People are still not paying attention to the signs Sarasota put up. ABC Action News found a cup was left on table. That is a perfect example of what the County wants put into trash cans. Not only is it garbage ugly, it is dangerous for wildlife.

"They typically see it as food and they ingest it and it may be fatal for them," said Wendi Crisp, a program coordinator for Keep Sarasota County Beautiful.

Rowland hopes people will play by the rules.

"Florida has always been a nice place to come visit for me," Rowland said. "I wanted to be the same thing for my kids because this something that can go on for generation to generation."

For more information on how you can participate in the Liberty Litter Cleanup to keep beaches clean, click here.

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Sarasota County plans for trash buildup on beaches over Independence Day holiday weekend - ABC Action News

All South Shore beaches open – Braintree Forum – Wicked Local – Wicked Local Braintree

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All 65 salt-water beaches on the South Shore passed bacteria tests this week and are open for swimming.

See water quality test results for each community and for Cape Cod, the South Coast and North Shore.

For more on Quincy beaches, call 617-376-1288, or visit tpl-beaches. For more on Wollaston Beach, call 617-626-4972.

HOW BEACHES ARE TESTED

Sixy-five beaches on the South Shore are tested for intestinal bacteria found in humans and animals.

High levels indicate the possible presence of disease-causing microbes that are present in sewage but are more difficult to detect. Bacterial colonies are filtered from three ounces of water and placed on a gel infused with nutrients and chemicals designed to promote growth.

Left in an incubator, the single cells isolated on the filter grow explosively, forming colonies visible to the naked eye. After one day, the colonies are counted and if they exceed 104 colonies, the beach is closed to swimming.

If the past five samples have a mean exceeding 35 colonies, the beach must also be closed to swimming.

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Despite Gloom and Doom, Northern California’s Beaches Still Hold a Magnetic Appeal – Vogue.com

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Im from California. When I tell people this on the East Coastwhere I have lived for the past seven yearsI can tell they get the wrong impression. The Golden State unfailingly conjures up pictures of sunny beaches filled with tan girls lounging about in bikinis. In these mental images, I assume, palm trees are not far away.

Thats not the California Im from. I grew up in Berkeley , a well-known small city still most associated with its university and the Free Speech Movement. And while the Bay Area, where Berkeley is centrally situated, is one of two great metropolitan poles that anchor the U.S.s second longest state, its somehow often an afterthought when the worlds sixth largest economy comes up.

Perhaps thats changing. Silicon Valleys tech boom has undoubtedly catapulted the San Francisco region to new level of notoriety. But no matter how much fame the Mark Zuckerbergs and Larry Pages may ultimately acquire for my hometowns extended area, most people will never picture the type of beaches that I grew up going to when the song California Dreamin suddenly comes crooning through the radio.

Stinson Beach is an hour-plus drive away from my old house. Despite the fact that Berkeley is technically located on a body of water, its the closest beach there is. (Some people might challenge me on this, to which I would respond that you have to calculate in the inevitable traffic delays that come with a trip to San Franciscos Ocean Beach.) The drive to Stinson is stunningly beautiful, but it can be equally unpleasant. Punctuated by stretches of boring industrial landscapes and adrenaline-inducing cliffs, the journey is if nothing else visually diverse.

After reaching Berkeleys outer limit, Highway 580 snakes through Richmonds Chevron plants to the three-lane Richmond San Rafael Bridge. On the other side is Marin, a county thats one-half bottle blonde moms, and one-half old-school hippies. The goal here is to get to, and stay on, Panoramic Highway. Despite its switch back turns and elevation changes, the road takes you through an extended red wood forrest. If you do this drive a few times before visiting Muir Woods, youll likely be underwhelmed.

The other option is to get onto Highway 1. Famously beautiful, cruelly steep, its difficult to imagine how even the most experienced drivers could glide down this road without a hint of anxiety. The reward is, however, worth the stress risk. Its here where you can truly soar along the Pacific Ocean, cliff on one side, sea and sky merging together on the other. When I think back on it now, I cant help but envision the flight pattern of a seaside birddipping here, dipping there, at times appearing to drift out to sea, but always ultimately hugging the coast, albeit from above.

No matter which road you take (and make no mistake, I recommend the former), the initial moment of reveal always catches your breath. Suddenly, on the other side of one of those switchback turns, there it is: the beach. More often then not, you realize that its foggy. The Bay Area has a way of doing that to you, especially in the summer. (Theres a reason why local residents often use the expressions June gloom and Fogust when referring the first and last months of the summer season.) But even on a cloudless day, when you see Stinson for the first time, its likely to be steeped in a blanket of gray. Marin is a banana belt, but the Pacific Ocean in Northern California is not.

Regardless, upon ultimately piling out of the car in the parking lot, and trotting up a slightly inclined path to the sand, Stinson does what all great beaches doelicit a giddy, almost primal, sense of joy. I think this sensation is rooted in drama; the ocean is so large compared to us, so omnipresent and so powerful once its reached. It has a way too of making the natural things around itnamely the sky and surrounding landsuddenly feel twice as grand. Its here where Stinson truly excels. After the long wait, perilous drive, and knowledge that you are now at one of the worlds great shark capitals, Stinson knows how to drum up the drama.

Most days at Stinson, I didnt even get in to the water. (In the winter its way too cold without a wet suit, and even this time of year, it can be unappealingly frigid.) Senior year of high school, I would lie on my back smiling, skin fully covered despite the thick layer of SPF 70 that I had previously applied. On the way back home, a few hours later, I would be overcome with a dreamy feeling of accomplishment. Without a doubt, these memories are informed by a slight nostalgia for life with my high school friends, blaring loud pop music during what would be, for many of us, the last days that wed live in California (at least for now).

But would I trade Stinson for any other beachsome endlessly sunny, easily accessible, Southern Californian counterpart? Not a chance. The beauty of Stinson rests in its drama. Its apparent flaws hold a magnetic appeal. And through those rough waters, that truth reflects unflinchingly back up at you. No matter how foggy the day may be.

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Despite Gloom and Doom, Northern California's Beaches Still Hold a Magnetic Appeal - Vogue.com

Smoking at California parks and beaches could soon be illegal – The Mercury News

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SACRAMENTO Public parks and state beaches would be added to the list of no-smoking zones in California under a bill from an East Bay Democrat that cleared another legislative hurdle this week.

The proposed restrictions which would apply to cigarettes, cigars, marijuana and e-cigarettes will prevent wildfires, curb pollution and protect animals that mistake life-threatening cigarette butts for food, supporters say.

Senate Bill 386 was passed by the Senate late last month. And on Tuesday, it cleared the Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee on a 10-4, mostly party-line vote. Republican Steven Choi, of Irvine, broke ranks with his party by voting in favor of the ban. Assemblyman Rudy Salas, a Democrat from a swing district in Bakersfield, voted against it.

The measure along with a similar bill from Democratic Assemblyman Marc Levine, of Marin County is just the latest attempt by lawmakers to bring an end to smoking and smoking-related trash in public parks and on beaches. An almost identical bill passed the Legislature last year, only to be vetoed by Gov. Jerry Brown, who called it too broad and punitive. Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger nixed another such attempt in 2010.

Some areas such as San Francisco and San Mateo counties and cities including Santa Cruz, San Diego and Los Angeles already have ordinances banning smoking in parks and public beaches. Glazers bill would prohibit smoking at all state beaches, estuaries and bays, slapping violators withfines of up to $250.

The proposed ban would also cover public parks, but was amended to include some wiggle room, allowing local parks directors to establish smoking zones.

Because the no-smoking signage would cost the state roughly $1 million, the bill must be approved by the Assembly appropriations committee before advancing to the Assembly floor. The proposal has no formal opposition and is backed by the American Lung Association, Save the Bay, the California State Lands Commission, the California Statewide Firefighters Association and the California Statewide Law Enforcement Association.

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Smoking at California parks and beaches could soon be illegal - The Mercury News

Where are Orlando’s beaches? Pinellas tourism pitch urges visitors to head west – Tampabay.com

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For years, Florida's east coast has been known as Orlando's beach.

With the shorelines of New Smyrna, Cocoa and Daytona all one-to-two hours away from the nation's theme park capital, it makes sense. But tourism officials in Pinellas County are making a targeted push to snag the title.

For the second year in a row, Visit St. Pete-Clearwater is funneling more marketing dollars into the Orlando area this summer to try to entice travelers who visit Disney World and Universal Studios to head West not East for a few days at the beach. It plans to spend $1 million this summer alone on a marketing pitch that also includes Jacksonville and Miami, as well as the Greater Tampa Bay market.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Pinellas County tourism surged in 2016 despite challenges of Zika, Pulse shooting and more

"We've always been marketing in Orlando, but we've noticed lately that there's a higher volume of people coming to our beaches than we thought previously," said David Downing, president and CEO of Visit St. Pete-Clearwater, Pinellas County's tourism marketing agency. "Travelers always looked east of Orlando for the beach. We want to convince them to look west, where we have two of America's best beaches (St. Pete and Clearwater) according to TripAdvisor."

Television, radio and print advertisements are circling through the Orlando metro market this summer and Visit St. Pete-Clearwater staff bought the website BeachesOfOrlando.com, which automatically takes users back to VisitStPeteClearwater.com for more information about visiting Pinellas County. In addition to year-round television/digital marketing, the local tourism group also is launching its first-ever summer/fall/winter specific campaigns in the Orlando area.

[Courtesy of Visit St. Pete-Clearwater]

Visit St. Pete-Clearwater is using this print ad to promote Tampa Bay beaches to Orlando visitors as "Orlando's beaches."

[Courtesy of Visit St. Pete-Clearwater]

Visit St. Pete-Clearwater is using this print ad to promote Tampa Bay beaches to Orlando visitors as "Orlando's beaches."

Orlando, which attracts visitors from around the globe, has already been funneling more travelers to Pinellas County beaches, data from Visit St. Pete-Clearwater shows. Overnight visitation to St. Pete/Clearwater from the Orlando area has increased more than 25 percent over the last five years.

"And that's not just seasonal visitors, it's year round," Downing said. "So we started a year ago to raise more awareness."

Summer is usually the season that Florida tourism officials market to other Florida destinations to try to capture the drive-in traveler. It's traditionally a slower time of year when seasonal guests head back north, and Floridians take advantage of weekend or summer vacation beach trips.

Visit Tampa Bay, Hillsborough County's tourism agency, is also targeting Orlando, Miami, Jacksonville and Fort Myers this summer with an advertising campaign sharing the diverse attractions the county has to offer, including restaurants, the Florida Aquarium and Busch Gardens. The campaign has a strong focus on Spanish-speaking audiences.

[Courtesy of Visit St. Pete-Clearwater]

Visit St. Pete-Clearwater is using these digital billboards to promote Tampa Bay beaches to Orlando visitors as "Orlando's beaches."

Visit St. Pete-Clearwater is also marketing in other Florida cities, like Jacksonville and West Palm Beach this summer, but Orlando is the focus, Downing said. And it's no wonder: Orlando served 68 million travelers last year, a record that edged it past most other American destinations, including New York City. With the expansion of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal and new attractions like Star Wars and Avatar lands coming to Disney, that growth won't likely slow down anytime soon.

Despite an infusion of marketing dollars from Visit-St. Pete Clearwater, it won't be easy to upend the longstanding relationship with Florida's east coast. Brevard County's tourism office has pushed the link between Orlando and its beaches for years.

Still, Downing says he doesn't see this as a competition.

"If anything we compliment each other. We see this as our next evolution in Orlando," Downing said. "We want to continue to build our relationship there."

Contact Justine Griffin at jgriffin@tampabay.com. Follow @SunBizGriffin.

A numbers-driven marketing push

Visit St. Pete Clearwater can count plenty of reasons it wants to snag the title of "Orlando's beaches" from Florida's East Coast. Among them:

With more than 68 million visitors annually, Orlando is the top-visited destination in the country.

Overnight visitation to St. Pete/Clearwater from the Orlando area has increased more than 25 percent over the last five years.

Florida delivers 30 percent of all visitors to St, Pete/Clearwater, with Orlando being the top feeder market.

Source: Visit St. Pete-Clearwater

Where are Orlando's beaches? Pinellas tourism pitch urges visitors to head west 06/29/17 [Last modified: Thursday, June 29, 2017 9:59pm] Photo reprints | Article reprints

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Swim at your own risk at 2 St. Simons Island beaches with higher-than-normal bacteria levels – ActionNewsJax.com

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by: Lorena Inclan, Action News Jax Updated: Jun 29, 2017 - 9:56 AM

ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. - UPDATE: St. Simons Island beach advisories lifted

Health officials again tested the water at two St. Simons Island beaches Wednesday to see if bacteria levels have gone down.

Action News Jax told you about the beach advisories at East Beach and Massengale Park Beach Tuesday. The results from Wednesdays test are expected on Thursday.

Signs were posted at certain beach access points warning beachgoers about the higher-than-normal levels of bacteria in the water.

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I saw people testing the water early in the morning. We realized that something is going on, Giovanny Figueroa said.

The warning didnt seem to stop many from going in anyway. Others didnt even know about the advisory until Action News Jax's Lorena Inclan told them.

Now that we know, probably we have to think about it, about the young kids, Figueroa said.

And with July Fourth weekend just days away, you can expect to see busy beaches.

District environmental health director Todd Driver said routine testing detected high levels of the enterococcus bacteria.

Which is a bacteria that is found in the gut of warm-blooded animals, humans and animals, Driver said.

The elevated levels were found in East Beach from 10th Street to Driftwood Drive and Massengale Park Beach from Driftwood Drive to Cedar Street.

Theres no way of knowing if youll get sick from it, but Driver said if you go in the water, youre at a higher risk of developing symptoms.

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Gastrointestinal illness, stomach illnesses, said Driver.

Its unclear where the bacteria came from, but possible sources include stormwater runoff and boating waste.

If those results fall below the EPAs recommended maximum levels of bacteria, at that point the Health Department will lift that advisory, said Driver.

Even if the advisory isnt lifted before the holiday weekend, beaches will remain open -- but if you get in the water, youre doing so at your own risk.

2017 Cox Media Group.

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Swim at your own risk at 2 St. Simons Island beaches with higher-than-normal bacteria levels - ActionNewsJax.com

Your Connected Devices Are Screwing Up Astronomy – WIRED

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By now, Here Are Some Stupid Things on the Internet of Things has become a full-on article genre . Theres even a Tumblr dedicated to the idea: We Put a Chip in It, its called.

In some visions of the future, smart devices capture, quantify, and control most aspects of daily life. The oven knows you forgot about your cookies and cools them off for you at peak crisped-edginess. The fan knows you have entered the room and desire a breeze. The pillow knows when you start snoring and vibrates so you shift in your sleep. Alexa can order you one! OK, Google?

Heres the thing, though: For those chips in those devices to do any good, they have to communicate with the outside world, and the outside world has to talk back. Andlike most communications magicthat often happens via radio waves.

The increasing number of smart objects on Earth (in addition to higher-power and longer-range WiFi-beaming satellites, car radars, and ubiquitous cell coverage) causes problems for scientists who want to look beyond our planet: Astronomers are finding it harder and harder to detect faint radio signals from space, which sometimes come in on the same frequencies as human technology. Scientists, industry, and the government are trying to share a spectrum so crowded many call it a crisis.

Right now, the FCC regulates the use of the radio spectrum. And it saves some bands, or ranges of frequencies, mostly for radio astronomy. Around 1,400 megahertz, for example, astronomers can fairly safely look for neutral hydrogen. A bit higher, near 1,600 megahertz, the FCC has protections for hydroxyl observations. In fully protected bands, like hydrogen's, no one elsenot a smart toothbrush maker or a cell phone providercan broadcast at those frequencies.

The rest of the FCC-allocated spectrum is split among 29 other services, like broadcasting, amateur, mobile, and meteorological aids. Not all technologies require licenses to use specific frequencies (including many Internet of Things things). But within some of the FCC's slices, companies do vie for specific sections. Cell providers, for instance, paid more than $19 billion earlier this year for 84 megahertz of bandwidth that television broadcasters used to use.

And that b$g number should tell you something: Those slices are precious. It's simple supply and demand. Which means those wedges reserved exclusively for radio astronomy? Someone would really like to use them to make money.

Because this is academia, theres a committee for that: the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Radio Frequencies ( CORF! ). And on July 1, astronomer Liese vanZee will become its new head, leading the group of scientists who (try to) help guide the governmentsand the worldsallocation of radio resources so scientists can study galaxies without confiscating your Samsung Galaxy.

VanZees research mostly uses one of the ultra-protected bandsaround frequencies of 1,420 megahertz, where cosmic hydrogen beams out its emissions. So shes got a lot less to worry about, personally, than some radio astronomers who study the complex organic molecules that send emit at the same frequency as anticollision radar . Still, even in vanZees supposedly science-only section of spectrum, problems pop up. It doesn't prevent people from deciding to broadcast there, she says. That often happens unintentionally, in the form of harmonics , or accidental overtones with frequencies exactly 2, 3, 4, etc. times higher than intended one.

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In preparation for an upcoming meeting of the World Radiocommunication Conference , vanZees committee will provide input to attending leaders on some new spectrum between 275 and 450 gigahertz. With the lower frequencies so crowded, people are pushing higher (even though the technology to do that isn't mature), and moving into previously un-allocated spectrum.

But theres a big problem: A brand-new, billion-dollar telescope in Chilethe Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, or ALMAjust opened its eyes a few years ago, staring into space in that radio range. If you want to study molecules in our atmosphere or other parts of our galaxy or other galaxies, that's a part of the spectrum you want to be using, says vanZee. If a bunch of communications types start broadcasting all up in there, that billion-dollar instrument won't be able to do its job.

Now, vanZee isnt saying everyone except astronomers should become luddites to save astronomy. It's really tempting for the science community to put their foot down and say, No no no, she says. But, in fact, we do want to work with industry.

Both sides can work to minimize head butting: Astronomers can keep building their radio telescopes in the worlds wilds, far from the hordes of Blueteeth and cell towers and Teslas. And they can build interferometerssets of smaller telescopes that work together as one, which help astronomers distinguish between terrestrial and celestial signalsinstead of standalone dishes.

For industrys part, it can say sorry when it creates harmonics, and then fix them. That's good for everyone. You're wasting energy if youre transmitting outside of your band, vanZee says. And the FCC could give both sides more leeway: Put some blank space between astronomys sacred bands and the communication bands, so industry can be a little sloppy without obscuring the universe.

That's still an old way of thinking about things, though, says Darpathe defense research agency that brought you this crawling jellyfish donut robot. "Allocating" the spectrum? So rigid, so pass. The way forward is not to tell radio-emitters exactly what to do, but to liberate them, let them decide for themselves.

The old model worked relatively well for more than a century. But its no longer practical, in Darpa's opinion, to have devices that operate at a set, static frequency. This is the basis of the agency's new Spectrum Collaboration Challenge (similar to a challenge from a few years ago ): Outsiders create devices that can choose, on the fly, what frequency range will work best at that moment, based on the broadcasting characteristics of other nearby devicesincluding those that are also flipping between frequencies.

If we want to eliminate the inefficiencies that exist today," says Paul Tilghman, head of the challenge, "we want to manage the spectrum at machine speeds, not people speeds. Thirty teams, selected in January, are now preparing for the first tournament in December , where their radio-broadcasters will battle-of-the-bots it out.

The military, and so Darpa, is interested in this because its many unmanned platforms drones in the water and the air, satellites in orbitneed consistent, uninterrupted communications. But whatever comes out of the competition can make its way into industry, too. Into your toothbrush that tells you if your teeth are clean!

Super-smart broadcasters like that could be both good and bad news for radio astronomy. The good news: The algorithms that help the machines figure out which frequencies to use can easily include things like a "never use 1,420 megahertz."

The bad news: When astronomers want to know if a signal comes from space, they sometimes depend on knowing what a given source of human-made radio waves looks like. "Yes, that's definitely the neighbors' iRobot ," they may be able to say. But not if iRobot is always changing.

The important thing, however radio use evolves, is to share, smartly, and to talk it all through first. Because as cool as it is to communicate at home, doing so irresponsibly could cut humans off from space. If you fill the spectrum with man-made emissions, you will never be able to understand certain parts of the universe, says vanZee.

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Your Connected Devices Are Screwing Up Astronomy - WIRED

Astronomers spot a pair of orbiting supermassive black holes – Astronomy Magazine

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Supermassive black holes are the monstrous objects found in the centers of galaxies. The Milky Ways own supermassive black hole weighs nearly 4 million times more than our Sun. Although massive and often active, these objects are still difficult to see in the traditional sense of the word for many reasons. But now, using the uniquely sharp vision afforded by the National Science Foundations Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), astronomers have spotted for the first time a pair of supermassive black holes orbiting each other in a galaxy 750 million light-years away.

The discovery, which appears in the Astrophysical Journal, utilized radio information to determine that the two supermassive black holes are a mere 24 light-years apart and have a combined mass of about 15 billion times the mass of our Sun. It takes them about 30,000 years to complete a single orbit.

The pair of supermassive black holes is located in a giant elliptical galaxy called 0402+379, which was first observed to have two core regions in data taken in 2003 and 2005 with the VLBA. The VLBA is part of the Long Baseline Observatory, a radio telescope system utilizing 10 antennas located between Hawaiis Big Island and St. Croix. Such a long baseline, or large distance between the dishes, allows astronomers to combine the data taken from each to observe objects with significantly greater detail than using one dish alone.

New observations of 0402+379 were taken in 2009 and 2015; when this information was combined with the previous observations, astronomers was finally able to identify the motion of two distinct supermassive black holes. This is the first pair of black holes to be seen as separate objects that are moving with respect to each other, and thus makes this the first black-hole visual binary, said Greg Taylor of the University of New Mexico, one of the studys authors, in a press release.

Why does this galaxy have two supermassive black holes? The presence of two such objects simply indicates that the galaxy has undergone a merger in the relatively recent cosmic past. When two galaxies combine, each contributes a supermassive black hole to the final product; in time, these two supermassive black holes should also combine, leaving behind a single object. In the case of 0402+379, this just hasnt happened yet, and likely wont happen for a few million years yet. Thats how long it will take for the orbits of the supermassive black holes to spiral inward via the loss of energy through gravitational radiation, such as the gravitational waves detected by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO).

Such pairs of supermassive black holes should actually be quite common, given the fact that galaxy mergers are themselves common events. Mergers are how galaxies grow over cosmic time, morphing from young, active spiral galaxies into old, quiescent ellipticals. Now that we've been able to measure orbital motion in one such pair, we're encouraged to seek other, similar pairs. We may find others that are easier to study, explained Karishma Bansal, a graduate student at the University of New Mexico and lead author of the study.

But the confirmation of a pair of supermassive black holes in 0402+379 isnt the end of astronomers interest in this galaxy. We need to continue observing this galaxy to improve our understanding of the orbit, and of the masses of the black holes, stressed Taylor. This pair of black holes offers us our first chance to study how such systems interact.

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Astronomers spot a pair of orbiting supermassive black holes - Astronomy Magazine

Astronomy.com will host a live feed on Asteroid Day – Astronomy Magazine

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International Asteroid Day 2017 is nearly upon us. How will you spend it?

Astronomy.com is pleased to host the official live Asteroid Day stream this Friday, June 30, 2017, beginning at 3am Central European Time (10pm Eastern Time on Thursday evening). This years broadcast will be the first ever 24-hour live broadcast focusing on space and, specifically, asteroids. The intention of the broadcast is to spark and foster global conversations about not only asteroids and their effects on Earth, but also current and future missions to asteroids and Earth-based asteroid science projects.

As remnants from the formation of the solar system, asteroids have much to tell us about the solar nebula from which our planets formed, as well as the conditions throughout the early solar system. But because they are so small, they are difficult to see with any great detail from Earth, despite the fact that we can chart their paths relatively easily with small telescopes. There are several asteroid-centric space missions currently operating (including Dawn and OSIRIS-REx), as well as missions currently in the planning stages (Lucy and Psyche). Each mission reveals a little more about these enigmatic yet essential objects, helping us to piece together the puzzle of how our solar system formed and evolved over the past 4.6 billion years.

The Asteroid Day broadcast will include footage from Luxembourg, as well as programming from NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). You can tune in here on our website for the live broadcast, or find out more on the official Asteroid Day website.

The 2017 International Asteroid Day broadcast is made possible with support from OHB, SES, BCE, and the Luxembourg Government.

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Astronomy.com will host a live feed on Asteroid Day - Astronomy Magazine

Institute for Astronomy celebrates 50 years of discovery – UH System Current News

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Since its founding on July 1, 1967, the University of Hawaii at Mnoa Institute for Astronomy (IfA) has played a role in almost every significant astronomical discovery. IfA is responsible for the observatories on Maunakea, the most productive astronomy site in the world, and on Haleakal, the world leader in asteroid and Near Earth Object detection. IfA recently celebrated its 50th anniversary.

UH President David Lassner said, The Institute for Astronomy is clearly one of our superstars in research.

IfA graduate and Native Hawaiian Heather Kaluna was born and raised in Phoa on the Island of Hawaii and will begin teaching astronomy as an associate professor at UH Hilo in the fall.

The maintaining and strengthening of IfAs outreach programs, which werent around when I was growing up, are important opportunities to continue nurturing IfAs student body with more of Hawaiis keiki, said Kaluna. She added that IfA outreach programs have the power to fill children with pride in the world class science taking place here at home.

IfA is looking forward to another 50 years of cutting edge astronomy.

On Maunakea, all of the observatories will remain competitive for the foreseeable future. UHs renovated 2.2-meter telescope will be upgraded with a new adaptive optics system. A specialized 10-meter telescope, able to collect thousands of spectra simultaneously, may replace the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. Another important frontier is the Thirty Meter Telescope; IfA remains hopeful that construction will begin in early 2018.

The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, the largest solar telescope in the world, will advance the frontiers of solar physics. The first Pan-STARRS telescope reports more discoveries of solar system objects and supernovae than all other current surveys combined. The second Pan-STARRS telescope will improve the odds of finding new objects in the solar system, especially asteroids that come close to the Earth. The ATLAS telescope, paired with one on Maunaloa, will find dangerous asteroids on a collision course with the Earth. A dedicated high-contrast PLANETS (Polarized Light from Atmospheres of Nearby Extra-Terrestrial Systems) telescope is also planned.

IfA hopes to build additional ATLAS telescopes in the southern hemisphere. There is a proposal for a Hawaii Orbiting Space Telescope to conduct sky surveys, and also the possibility of working jointly with the European Space Agencys Euclid mission to measure the cosmological acceleration of the universe.

IfA Director Gnther Hasinger said, With these wonderful resources and an ongoing investment in our world-class faculty and students, IfA will pursue a vibrant range of research programs, making discoveries we cannot even imagine today. Through our education and community programs, we will engage the next generation of astronomers with the amazing opportunities we enjoy in our own backyard, and ensure that the IfA and Hawaii remain exceptional places for astronomy for at least 50 more years.

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Institute for Astronomy celebrates 50 years of discovery - UH System Current News

MSU Astronomy Students Look to the Sky to Listen for Good Vibrations – KSMU Radio

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Missouri State University Astronomy professor Mike Reed, likens his and his students research into vibrations of stars, to listening to a full orchestra play one long note, and picking out the sounds of individual instruments.

Mike Reed says The Kepler Space Telescope, launched in 2009, makes that research much easier, and more successful. Kepler is a huge innovation in that unlike the Hubble Telescope , which orbits the Earth every 90 minutes, letting the Sun, Moon and Earth get in its way, Kepler is far enough away so that the Earth is but a tiny, tiny dot in that telescope. That allows it to look at one spot for virtually as long as the telescope can last. Kepler is now in an extended mission which should continue until sometime in 2018.

Mike Reed says Kepler data is downloaded to a public archive, and is available to anyone who wants it, however: We do have to propose for our targets, what Kepler looks at, and we apply for our targets. Its a competitive proposal, and when we win targets, it observes those and downloads the data to the public archive, where we get it.

One of the things were doing, Reed says, Is trying to be on the cutting edge of technology, using Kepler of course, to study the vibrations of stars, and doing seismology. Just like studying earthquakes, we study vibrations within stars, to determine what their structures are.

According to Reed, the stars vibration is seen by Kepler as successions of light variations, which can be recorded as sound waves which can be sped up on a time scale for placement in an audio file. Every star gives us something new. When MSU students this data and theyre finding new things, well look at the vibrations together and theyll say, What do You Think This Means? We have to piece together that puzzle, and thats very exciting.

Mike Reed and his students analyze Kepler Space Telescope data inside MSUs Astronomy Lab, located in Kemper Hall, room200.

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MSU Astronomy Students Look to the Sky to Listen for Good Vibrations - KSMU Radio

It’s in the stars, June 30, 2017 – Daily Advertiser

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30 Jun 2017, 2 p.m.

Star Chart puts a virtual planetarium right in your pocket.

OUR Australian skies are sparkling at the moment so why not get outside tonight under the stars from your own backyard.

Sure its cool but you wont be disappointed with so much on offer for now and the start of July.

Remember, the starlight you see coming from all those stars tonight left there hundreds, and in most cases thousands of years ago, and its just arriving now!

ASTRONOMY MADE EASY: Modern apps will find anything in the Aussie night sky for you. Picture: Starwalk

When you stargaze youre looking back in time, said Dave Reneke from Australasian Science magazine.

When you use a telescope youre using a time machine. Cool huh?

If youre new to astronomy the hardest part is learning all those stars.

Relax! Its a lot easier than you think, but you wont do it sitting inside at your keyboard.

Some people say that we spend too much time indoors and not enough time observing the things around us, like the stars and planets.

It puts a virtual planetarium right in your pocket.

But what if your screen, in this case your Smartphone or tablet, can actually help you appreciate the skies more?

Well they can and theyre amazingly simple to use!

Here are some of my favourites, Dave said.

Sky View will identify almost everything above your head at night and its fantastic! If you want an easy target try MoonPhasefor your lunar viewing, then download a free NASA app spotthestation.nasa.gov/sightings to catch the space station passing over your area.

This one is a knockout. On your tablet or laptop download an app called Star Chart.

It puts a virtual planetarium right in your pocket.

It uses state of the art GPS technology that will show you the current location of every star and planet visible from Earth.

Hey, want to see something really cool? Dave said.

After sunset all this week the two stunners, Jupiter and Saturn appear in our winter skies all evening. This is magic! Get the family outside and just marvel at two of the best celestial sights youll see.

Theyll be with us all week then, things change dramatically in August! Venus however steals the show this week because it looks like a brilliant white beacon high overhead. In real terms, the planets are millions of kilometres apart, but to us here on Earth they appear to fairly close together.

It may be cold outside buy winter skies are the clearest. Go look, you may surprise yourself.

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It's in the stars, June 30, 2017 - Daily Advertiser

Rialto Beach road to reopen, astronomy sessions set as Olympic National Park marks birthday – The Seattle Times

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Here's the latest roundup of what's open in the park this summer and what's not, and details on summer fun.

Happy birthday, Olympic National Park. Thursday, June 29, is the 79th anniversary of the day in 1938 that Congress created the park.

You can help celebrate with a visit this Independence Day weekend. Heres the latest roundup of whats open in the park this summer and whats not. The top of the news: Access to the parks scenic Rialto Beach will reopen this weekend after six weeks of repair work to Mora Road.

Its also the season for ranger programs, plus special star-gazing astronomy sessions up high on Hurricane Ridge and full-moon hikes on Hurricane Hill.

Heres an area-by-area update provided by the park:

Pacific Coast

Kalaloch, Mora and Ozette are Olympic National Parks road-accessible coastal destinations.Kalaloch and Ozetteare open, including all roads, campgrounds and trailheads.Mora Campground is open.Mora Road has been closed for six weeks for flood damage repair work just beyond the campground with no access to Rialto Beach. The road is scheduled to reopen for the Fourth of July holiday weekend. This project restored the road to two lanes and addressed additional slope instabilities.Visitors should call the Road & Weather Hotline at 360-565-3131 for current road conditions.

The Kalaloch and Mora campgrounds both provide drinking water and flush toilets. The Ozette Campground is primitive, with pit toilets, and drinking water is available now through mid-October. South Beach Campground, a primitive campground located just south of Kalaloch is open through September 25.

The Kalaloch Information Station is open daily through Sept. 30.

Kalaloch Lodge is open year-round with cabins, lodge rooms, dining, gift shop, and a small store. For more information, checkwww.thekalalochlodge.com.

Staircase

The Staircase Campground is open with drinking water and flush toilets available through Sept. 30.

Dosewallips

The Dosewallips Road remains closed due to a washout outside the park boundaries in Olympic National Forest, so access to the primitive campground is walk-in only (6.5 miles).

Deer Park

Deer Park Road and campground are open. The campground provides primitive camping, with pit toilets and no drinking water.

Hurricane Ridge Road and Heart O the Hills

The Hurricane Ridge Road is now open 24 hours a day, weather permitting. Visitors should call the Road & Weather Hotline at 360-565-3131 for current road and weather conditions.

The Hurricane Hill Road is open.

Obstruction Point Road is now open for the first 3 miles to Waterhole. Park officials anticipate opening the remaining section of Obstruction Point Road by early July.

The Hurricane Ridge Visitor Center is staffed daily through Sept. 30. The Hurricane Ridge Gift Shop & Snack Bar on the lower level of the Hurricane Ridge Visitor Center is open daily through October 15. Checkwww.olympicnationalparks.comfor more information.

The Olympic National Park Visitor Center in Port Angeles is open daily except for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Summer hours of operation are from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Heart O the Hills Campground is open year round with drinking water and flush toilets available.

Elwha Valley

The Olympic Hot Springs Road is open to the Glines Canyon Spillway Overlook. The remainder of the Olympic Hot Springs Road is closed to all access during work on the Boulder Creek Trail. This project involves the use of heavy equipment for the demolition and removal of the Crystal Creek bridge and installation of an alternate route and creek crossing at that location. For visitor and employee safety, there will be no access above the Glines Canyon Overlook on Olympic Hot Springs Road until later this summer.

The Whiskey Bend Road is open to the trailhead.

There are currently no campgrounds in the Elwha Valley. Campgrounds in the area were destroyed by flooding in recent years.

Lake Crescent

Lake Crescent Lodge is open for the season and will remain open through Jan. 2, 2018, offering a range of lodging options, a dining room, boat rentals and a gift shop.

Fairholme Campground is open through Oct. 2, with drinking water and flush toilets available.Fairholme Storewill open daily May 26-Sept. 4.

Log Cabin Resort is open through Sept. 30 for lodging, RV and tent camping, a boat launch, dining room and store.

La Poel picnic area is open for day use.

Sol Duc Valley

The Sol Duc Road is generally open 24 hours a day, unless road work or weather conditions cause it to close temporarily.

The Sol Duc Campground is operated by Sol Duc Hot Springs Resort and is open for the season with flush toilets and drinking water available through Oct. 29. Reservations are accepted for up to 75 percent of the campsites, with the remainder available on a first-come, first-served basis. Reservations for the Sol Duc Campground can be made online atwww.recreation.gov. After Oct. 29, Loop A of the campground will be open for primitive use when the road is open.

The Sol Duc Hot Springs Resort is open for the season with lodging, dining, hot spring pools and a small store. The resort will be open through Oct. 29.

Hoh Rain Forest

The Hoh Rain Forest Road is generally open 24 hours a day, unless road work or weather conditions cause it to close temporarily. The Hoh Rain Forest Campground is open year round with drinking water and flush toilets available.

The Hoh Rain Forest Visitor Center is open daily through Sept. 30.

Queets Valley

The Lower and Upper Queets roads are both open 24 hours a day, unless road work or weather conditions cause temporary closures. The Queets Campground is open for primitive camping with pit toilets and no drinking water.

Quinault Rain Forest

The Quinault Loop Road, which includes the Quinault North Shore and South Shore roads, is open.The North Fork Road is also open.

The six-mile Graves Creek Road is open. RVs and trailers are not permitted because of road conditions.

Quinault area roads are typically open 24 hours a day, unless temporarily closed by road work or weather conditions. The Graves Creek Campground and North Fork Campground are both open for primitive camping with pit toilets and no drinking water.

Park trails and Wilderness Information Center

The Olympic National Park Wilderness Information Center, located at the Olympic National Park Visitor Center in Port Angeles, is currently open8 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday-Thursdayand8 a.m.-6 p.m. Friday-Saturday.Visitors are encouraged to stop by or call the Wilderness Information Center at 360-565-3100 for current trail reports, summer hiking safety tips and trip-planning suggestions. Such information is alsoavailable at the parks website.

Even at low elevations, hikers are reminded to use caution and be aware of downed trees, trail damage, high and swift creek crossings, and changing weather conditions.

Ranger programs and astronomy events

Summer ranger programs have started as well as the Astronomy/Night Sky Programs at Hurricane Ridge. The program schedule for all of the park is in the park newspaper on page 4:Summer Bugler 2017.

For astronomy programs, meet Master Observer John Goar at Hurricane Ridge Visitor Center for a one-hour program with telescopes. Look for the rings of Saturn or a distant galaxy. Schedule: July 13-20 at 11 p.m.; July 21-July 26 at 10:30 p.m.; August 12-19 at 10 p.m.; August 22-26 at 9:30 p.m.

Full moon on Hurricane Hill

Learn constellations from astronomer John Goar on Hurricane Hill. Meet at the Hurricane Hill trailhead. As the sun sets and the full moon rises, hike at your own pace up the 1.6-mile, partially-paved trail, climbing 700 feet to the summit. At the top, Goar will point out constellations. Bring flashlights and wear sturdy shoes. Schedule: July 8 and 9 at 9:15 p.m. to about 11:30 p.m.; August 6 and 7 at 7:30 p.m. to about 10 p.m.; September 4 at 6:45 p.m. to about 9:15 p.m.

If skies are cloudy, programs will be canceled. For program status, call the park recording at 360-565-3131 after 2 p.m. the day of the program.

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Rialto Beach road to reopen, astronomy sessions set as Olympic National Park marks birthday - The Seattle Times

Artificial brain helps Gaia catch speeding stars – Astronomy Now Online

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Artists impression of two stars speeding from the centre of our Galaxy, the Milky Way, to its outskirts. These hypervelocity stars move at several hundred of km/s, much faster than the galactic average. Credit: ESA

With the help of software that mimics a human brain, ESAs Gaia satellite spotted six stars zipping at high speed from the centre of our galaxy to its outskirts. This could provide key information about some of the most obscure regions of the Milky Way.

The results were presented Monday at the annual meeting of the European Astronomical Society, EWASS 2017, in Prague, Czech Republic.

Our galactic home, the Milky Way, houses more than a hundred billion stars, all kept together by gravity. Most are located in a flattened structure the galactic disc with a bulge at its centre, while the remaining stars are distributed in a wider spherical halo extending out to about 650,000 light-years from the centre.

Stars are not motionless in the galaxy but move around its centre with a variety of velocities depending on their location for example, the Sun orbits at about 220 km/s, while the average in the halo is about 150 km/s. Occasionally, a few stars exceed these already quite impressive velocities. Some are accelerated by a close stellar encounter or the supernova explosion of a stellar companion, resulting in runaway stars with speeds up to a few hundred km/s above the average.

A new class of high-speed stars was discovered just over a decade ago. Swooping through the galaxy at several hundred of km/s, they are the result of past interactions with the supermassive black hole that sits at the centre of the Milky Way and, with a mass of four million Suns, governs the orbits of stars in its vicinity.

These hypervelocity stars are extremely important to study the overall structure of our Milky Way, says Elena Maria Rossi from Leiden University in the Netherlands, who presented Gaias discovery of six new such stars today at the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science in Prague.

These are stars that have travelled great distances through the galaxy but can be traced back to its core an area so dense and obscured by interstellar gas and dust that it is normally very difficult to observe so they yield crucial information about the gravitational field of the Milky Way from the centre to its outskirts.

Unfortunately, fast-moving stars are extremely difficult to find in the stellar haystack of the Milky Way, as current surveys list the speed of at most a few hundred thousand stars.

To find them, scientists have been looking for young, massive stars that would stand out as interlopers in the old stellar population of the galactic halo. Given away by their out-of-place age, these stars are likely to have received an extra kick to reach the halo. Further measurements of their speeds and estimates of their past paths can confirm if they are indeed hypervelocity stars that were shoved away from the centre of the Milky Way.

So far, only 20 such stars have been spotted. Owing to the specific selection of this method, these are all young stars with a mass 2.5 to 4 times that of the Sun. However, scientists believe that many more stars of other ages or masses are speeding through the galaxy but remain unrevealed by this type of search.

The billion-star census being performed by Gaia offers a unique opportunity, so Elena and her collaborators started wondering how to use such a vast dataset to optimise the search for fast-moving stars.

After testing various methods, they turned to software through which the computer learns from previous experience.

In the end, we chose to use an artificial neural network, which is software designed to mimic how our brain works, explains Tommaso Marchetti, PhD student at Leiden University and lead author of the paper describing the results published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

After proper training, it can learn how to recognise certain objects or patterns in a huge dataset. In our case, we taught it to spot hypervelocity stars in a stellar catalogue like the one compiled with Gaia.

As part of Elenas research project to study these stars, the team started developing and training this program in the first half of 2016, in order to be ready for the first release of Gaia data a few months later, on 14 September.

Besides a map of over a billion stellar positions, this first release included a smaller catalogue with distances and motions for two million stars, combining observations from Gaias first year with those from ESAs Hipparcos mission, which charted the sky more than two decades ago. Referred to as the Tycho-Gaia Astrometric Solution, or TGAS, this resource is a taster for future catalogues that will be based solely on Gaia data.

On the day of the data release, we ran our brand new algorithm on the two million stars of TGAS, says Rossi. In just one hour, the artificial brain had already reduced the dataset to some 20,000 potential high-speed stars, reducing its size to about 1%. A further selection including only measurements above a certain precision in distance and motion brought this down to 80 candidate stars.

The team looked at these 80 stars in further detail. Since only information on the stars motion across the sky are included in the TGAS data, they had to find additional clues to infer their velocity, looking at previous stellar catalogues or performing new observations. Combining all these data, we found that six stars can be traced back to the galactic centre, all with velocities above 360 km/s, says Tommaso.

Most importantly, the scientists succeeded at probing a different population from the 20 stars that were already known: the newly identified stars all have lower masses, similar to the mass of our Sun. One of the six stars seems to be speeding so fast, at over 500 km/s, that it is no longer bound by the gravity of the galaxy and will eventually leave. But the other, slightly slower stars, are perhaps even more fascinating, as scientists are eager to learn what slowed them down the invisible dark matter that is thought to pervade the Milky Way might also have played a role.

While the new program was optimised to search for stars that were accelerated at the centre of the galaxy, it also identified five of the more traditional runaway stars, which owe their high speeds to stellar encounters elsewhere in the Milky Way.

This result showcases the great potential of Gaia opening up new avenues to investigate the structure and dynamics of our galaxy, says Anthony Brown from Leiden University, a co-author on the study and chair of the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium. The scientists are looking forward to using data from the next Gaia release, which is planned for April 2018 and will include distances and motions on the sky for over a billion stars, as well as velocities for a subset.

Dealing with a billion stars, rather than the two million explored so far, is an enormous challenge, so the team is busy upgrading their program to handle such a huge catalogue and to uncover the many speeding stars that will be lurking in the data. The sheer number of stars probed by Gaia is an exciting but also challenging opportunity for astronomers, and we are glad to see that they are happily embracing the challenge, says Timo Prusti, Gaia project scientist at ESA.

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Artificial brain helps Gaia catch speeding stars - Astronomy Now Online

WALL STREET JOURNAL-BEST SELLERS – Miami Herald

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Washington Post
WALL STREET JOURNAL-BEST SELLERS
Miami Herald
"Astrophysics for People in a Hurry" Neil deGrasse Tyson (Norton). 5. "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann (Doubleday). 6. "The 5 Second Rule" by Mel Robbins (Savio Republic). 7. "The Day the World Went Nuclear" by Bill O'Reilly (Henry Holt & Co.).
USA TODAY BEST-SELLERSWashington Post

all 3 news articles »

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WALL STREET JOURNAL-BEST SELLERS - Miami Herald

How artificial intelligence is taking on ransomware – CNBC

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In the early days, identifying malicious programs such as viruses involved matching their code against a database of known malware. But this technique was only as good as the database; new malware variants could easily slip through.

So security companies started characterizing malware by its behavior. In the case of ransomware, software could look for repeated attempts to lock files by encrypting them. But that can flag ordinary computer behavior such as file compression.

Newer techniques involve looking for combinations of behaviors. For instance, a program that starts encrypting files without showing a progress bar on the screen could be flagged for surreptitious activity, said Fabian Wosar, chief technology officer at the New Zealand security company Emsisoft. But that also risks identifying harmful software too late, after some files have already been locked up.

An even better approach identifies malware using observable characteristics usually associated with malicious intent for instance, by quarantining a program disguised with a PDF icon to hide its true nature.

This sort of malware profiling wouldn't rely on exact code matches, so it couldn't be easily evaded. And such checks could be made well before potentially dangerous programs start running.

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How artificial intelligence is taking on ransomware - CNBC

This Artificial Intelligence Kiosk Is Designed to Spot Liars at Airports – Inc.com

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From Alexa and self-driving cars to job applicant screening processes, artificial intelligence is fast becoming the norm in business. But it also could start playing far bigger roles in security, helping law enforcement and other protective agents figure out who's up to no good. As Fredrick Kunkle of The Washington Post reports, there's now an AI-based kiosk designed to detect whether travelers are fibbing.

Designed by Aaron Elkins, assistant professor of the Fowler College of Business Administration at San Diego State University, the new AI lie detector goes by the name Automated Virtual Agent for Truth Assessments in Real Time, or AVATAR for short. Once you've scanned your ID or passport, the kiosk asks you a bunch of questions. The inquiries are a good mix of inquiries you could practice (e.g., when were you born) and questions that might throw you if you're faking it (e.g., describe what you did today). You can see some of the process in the video below:

If everything goes well, security personnel should let you go on your way. If the results suggest you're being dishonest, security personnel might detain you for questioning or a search.

As you answer questions from AVATAR, the system uses sensors to gather data your body gives off. More specifically, the system looks at factors like voice (tone, pronoun use, etc.), pupil dilation and eye movement, facial expression (e.g., engagement of muscles around the corners of the eyes and mouth in a Duchenne smile) and posture. The theory is that it takes less effort to tell the truth than to maintain a faade. You subconsciously reveal that effort through physical cues, many of which researchers are still studying and pinning down. The AI is a big step forward from traditional polygraphs, which aren't practical for general, large-scale screening, use more limited physiological data (e.g, heart rate) and generally aren't considered very reliable.

In theory, AVATAR could become a widely applied staple in local law enforcement agencies around the world, helping police sort out a variety of conflicts. But its main intent is for border security checkpoints and airports. These facilities are of concern in part because of the high traffic they receive. But they are also worry points because of the current worldwide focus on terrorism. Although these types of attacks can come from many different individuals or groups and can be domestic or foreign in nature, the increasing activity of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has been particularly alarming for leaders around the globe. Attacks have led U.S. President Donald Trump, for instance, to call for a controversial travel ban against travelers from six majority-Muslim countries. AVATAR might one day help screen out individuals associated with ISIS or similar groups.

Right now, AVATAR is still in its infant stages. It's only collecting research data at border crossings in Mexico and Romania. But even at this point, it's a beautiful demonstration of how science and technology can blend toward a practical social good.

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This Artificial Intelligence Kiosk Is Designed to Spot Liars at Airports - Inc.com