The clearest picture ever from NASA of a dome shaped construction
PIA 17985 Satellite images Original NASA link http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/?IDNumber=PIA17985 This was presented in the Mars Moon Space group on facebook ...
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The clearest picture ever from NASA of a dome shaped construction - Video
NASA and Microsoft Collaboration Will Allow Scientists to Walk on Mars
Raw video for media Use. NASA and Microsoft have teamed up to develop software called OnSight, a new technology that will enable scientists to work virtually on Mars using wearable technology...
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NASA and Microsoft Collaboration Will Allow Scientists to Walk on Mars - Video
NASA probe begins search for life on Ceres
NASA #39;s Dawn spacecraft is approaching the dwarf planet Ceres, and will soon begin searching for signs of life. Launched in 2007, the probe has journeyed hundreds of millions of miles to the...
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PALO ALTO, Calif., Jan. 22 (UPI) -- Malcolm Gladwell says it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert in a given field. Naturally, he calls the principle the "10,000-Hour Rule." By that pseudoscientific measure, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an Einstein of solar photography.
This week, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory released its 100-millionth image of the sun, a total amassed in just under five years. The satellite uses its chief instrument, the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly, to snap a shot of the sun once every 12 seconds.
The AIA uses four telescopes working in conjunction, capturing the radiation emanating from the solar chromosphere and corona. The instrument captures radiation in eight channels, capturing 10 different wavelengths and spanning a temperature range from 20,000 degrees Kelvin to more than 20 million degrees Kelvin.
"Between the AIA and two other instruments on board, the Helioseismic Magnetic Imager and the Extreme Ultraviolet Variability Experiment, SDO sends down a whopping 1.5 terabytes of data a day," NASA officials wrote in a news release announcing the 100-million milestone.
"AIA is responsible for about half of that. Every day it provides 57,600 detailed images of the sun that show the dance of how solar material sways and sometimes erupts in the solar atmosphere, the corona."
The AIA is managed by scientists at the Lockheed Martin Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory, located in Palo Alto, California, in conjunction with researchers at Stanford University.
2015 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.
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NASA technologies are being used to locate underground water in some of the driest places on the Earth, build quieter and more fuel-efficient airplanes, and create shock absorbers that brace buildings in earthquakes.
The 2015 edition of NASAs annual Spinoff publication highlights these and other technologies whose origins lie in space exploration, but now have broader applications.
The game-changing technologies NASA develops to push the envelope of space exploration also improve our everyday lives, said NASA Chief Technologist David Miller. Spinoff 2015 is filled with stories that show there is more space in our lives than we think.
Spinoff 2015 tells the story of shock absorbers used during space shuttle launches that are now being used to brace buildings during earthquakes, preventing damage and saving lives. The book also features a NASA-simplified coliform bacteria test that is being used to monitor water quality in rural communities around the world, as well as cabin pressure monitors that alert pilots when oxygen levels are approaching dangerously low levels in their aircraft.
Published every year since 1976, Spinoff offers a close-up look at how NASA's initiatives in aeronautics and space exploration have resulted in technologies with commercial and societal benefits across the economy, in areas such as health and medicine; transportation; public safety; consumer goods; energy and environment; information technology; and industrial productivity. These spinoffs contribute to the countrys economic growth by generating billions of dollars in revenue and creating thousands of jobs.
NASA enjoys a large and varied technology portfolio unlike any other in existence, said Daniel Lockney, NASAs Technology Transfer program executive. And the range of successful technology transfer documented in Spinoff each year is as diverse as NASAs many science and exploration missions.
The publication also includes a Spinoffs of Tomorrow section showcasing 20 industry-ready NASA technologies -- from smart coatings that protect metal from corrosion to an identity verification system that uses the human heartbeat as a fingerprint -- that are all available for licensing.
NASAs Technology Transfer Program is charged with finding the widest possible applications of agency technology. Through partnerships and licensing agreements with industry, the program ensures NASAs investments in pioneering research find secondary applications that benefit the economy, create jobs, and improve quality of life.
Print copies of Spinoff 2015 can be requested free of cost on the Spinoff website, where digital versions of the book also can be downloaded.
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NASA Spinoff 2015 Features Space Technology Making Life Better on Earth
NASAs Dawn spacecraft has already delivered the first details of craters on the surface ofCeres as it draws closer to itshistorical rendezvous with the dwarf planet.
Dawn will be the first ever probe to visit a dwarf planet and has been heading for Ceres, the largest body in the main asteroid belt, since it left its first mission objective, Vesta, in 2012.
Its new images show the dwarf planet at 27 pixels across, around three times better than the calibration images taken in early December. The pictures are still only around 80 per cent of the resolution of images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2003 and 2004, but Dawn is about to get much closer to the dwarf world.
At the end of January, its images will surpass Hubble resolution, bringing scientists the first clues about this icy body in the asteroid belt, which some academics believe may harbor a subsurface ocean. That puts Ceres in the same bracket as Jupiters moon Europa and Saturns moon Enceladus warm, wet planetary bodies that are potentially habitable.
The Dawn spacecraft observed Ceres for an hour on Jan. 13, 2015, from a distance of 238,000 miles. A little more than half of its surface was observed at a resolution of 27 pixels. This animated GIF shows bright and dark features. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA/PSI)
said Marc Rayman, Dawns chief engineer and mission director, based at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
Already, the [latest] images hint at first surface structures such as craters, added Andreas Nathues, lead investigator for the framing camera team at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Gottingen, Germany.
Ceres sits in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, has an average diameter of 590 miles and is thought to be made up of a large proportion of water though how much of that water is liquid is still in question.
The dwarf planet is Dawns second port of call, after it delivered over 30,000 pictures and huge amounts of data and insight into Vesta, the second most massive object in the same asteroid belt. The probe orbited the 326-mile diameter space rock from 2011 to 2012, but thanks to its ion propulsion system, still has enough juice to be the first ever spacecraft to orbit two deep-space destinations.
Ceres has offered tantalising hints about its make-up, including the presence of water vapour in its thin atmosphere and these first hints of craters on its surface.
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NASA's Dawn Gets Closer To Potentially Habitable Dwarf Planet Ceres
(Reuters) - Oxford Instruments Plc , a maker of nanotechnology tools, warned of a nearly 26 percent fall in full-year profit, citing weak trading in Russia and Japan.
Shares in the company plunged nearly 30 percent on Thursday, wiping off more than 180 million pounds of its market value.
Oxford Instruments, which makes maintenance systems and parts for CT and MRI scanners, also said it expected revenue for the second half to be below market expectations.
The company said its Russian operations suffered due to the recent sanctions and cancellation of certain export licences.
"We now assume that no sales can be made to Russia for the remainder of this year and we are also assuming no sales to Russia next year," the company said in a statement.
At least three brokerages placed their price targets on the stock under review following the unexpected trading statement.
"Consensus is sure to drop significantly today. It becomes harder to remain positive about a share that has delivered so many reversals," Investec analysts said in a note.
Oxford Instruments shares were the biggest losers on the FTSE Midcap index <.FTMC>. They were down 27 percent at 803 pence per share at 0912 GMT, after touching their lowest since October 2011 earlier.
The company said it expected an adjusted pretax profit of about 35 million pounds for the year ending March 31, compared with 47.1 million pounds a year earlier.
Analysts on average expected a full-year pretax profit of 45.49 million pounds on revenue of 404 million pounds, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
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Oxford Instruments sees second-half revenue below market expectations
(Reuters) - Oxford Instruments Plc , a maker of nanotechnology tools, warned of a nearly 26 percent fall in full-year profit, citing weak trading in Russia and Japan.
Shares in the company plunged nearly 30 percent on Thursday, wiping off more than 180 million pounds of its market value.
Oxford Instruments, which makes maintenance systems and parts for CT and MRI scanners, also said it expected revenue for the second half to be below market expectations.
The company said its Russian operations suffered due to the recent sanctions and cancellation of certain export licences.
"We now assume that no sales can be made to Russia for the remainder of this year and we are also assuming no sales to Russia next year," the company said in a statement.
At least three brokerages placed their price targets on the stock under review following the unexpected trading statement.
"Consensus is sure to drop significantly today. It becomes harder to remain positive about a share that has delivered so many reversals," Investec analysts said in a note.
Oxford Instruments shares were the biggest losers on the FTSE Midcap index <.FTMC>. They were down 27 percent at 803 pence per share at 0912 GMT, after touching their lowest since October 2011 earlier.
The company said it expected an adjusted pretax profit of about 35 million pounds for the year ending March 31, compared with 47.1 million pounds a year earlier.
Analysts on average expected a full-year pretax profit of 45.49 million pounds on revenue of 404 million pounds, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
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Newswise By analyzing such parameters as the force applied by key presses and the time interval between them, a new self-powered non-mechanical intelligent keyboard could provide a stronger layer of security for computer users. The self-powered device generates electricity when a users fingertips contact the multi-layer plastic materials that make up the device.
This intelligent keyboard changes the traditional way in which a keyboard is used for information input, said Zhong Lin Wang, a Regents professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Every punch of the keys produces a complex electrical signal that can be recorded and analyzed.
Conventional keyboards record when a keystroke makes a mechanical contact, indicating the press of a specific key. The intelligent keyboard records each letter touched, but also captures information about the amount of force applied to the key and the length of time between one keystroke and the next. Such typing style is unique to individuals, and so could provide a new biometric for securing computers from unauthorized use.
In addition to providing a small electrical current for registering the key presses, the new keyboard could also generate enough electricity to charge a small portable electronic device or power a transmitter to make the keyboard wireless.
An effect known as contact electrification generates current when the users fingertips touch a plastic material on which a layer of electrode material has been coated. Voltage is generated through the triboelectric and electrostatic induction effects. Using the triboelectric effect, a small charge can be produced whenever materials are brought into contact and then moved apart.
Our skin is dielectric and we have electrostatic charges in our fingers, Wang noted. Anything we touch can become charged.
While the self-powered feature could provide a convenience benefit and potentially eliminate the need for batteries in wireless keyboards, Wang believes the major impact of the device may be in helping to secure computers by using individual typing patterns or habits as a biometric.
This has the potential to be a new means for identifying users, he said. With this system, a compromised password would not allow a cyber-criminal onto the computer. The way each person types even a few words is individual and unique.
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Self-Powered Intelligent Keyboard Could Provide a New Layer of Security
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Newswise PHILADELPHIA Workhorse molecules called heat-shock proteins contribute to refolding proteins that were once misfolded and clumped, causing such disorders as Parkinson's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and Alzheimer's disease. James Shorter, PhD, an associate professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics, at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, has been developing ways to "reprogram" one such protein a yeast protein called Hsp104 -- to improve its therapeutic properties.
But precise knowledge about the mechanisms by which Hsp104 works to fix misshapened and clumped proteins has been lacking. Now, Shorter and his colleagues have discovered that a previously disregarded part of the Hsp104 structure, the N-terminal domain (NTD), located at one end of the Hsp104 molecule, is a major player in its protein-busting powers. Their work was published in Molecular Cell.
"We've defined in unprecedented detail the mechanism by which Hsp104 dissolves its natural substrate, Sup35 prions," says Shorter. "We found that the N-terminal domain of Hsp104 allows the enzyme to function in a way that enables the disintegration of the prion." Prions are infectious proteins that cause disease in humans, but can be beneficial in yeast.
While Hsp104 is found in the vast majority of less complex organisms on the planet, it was somehow lost in the evolution of lower forms of life to more complex animals and humans. It's baffling in many ways," says Shorter. "We don't understand quite why Hsp104 was lost. But it could be useful in a therapeutic setting because we could add back an activity that humans don't really have: the ability to rapidly dissolve and refold prions." Previously, Shorter and colleagues defined a set of human heat shock proteins that can slowly dissolve prions.
Although previous work by Shorter and others had shown that the middle section of Hsp104 was vital for its clump-busting activity, the N-terminal domain was thought to be relatively unimportant. "Researchers had thought it was a more dispensable domain," says lead author, Elizabeth Sweeny, PhD, a former graduate student in the Shorter lab who is now a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "We reveal in this paper that when you give Hsp104 a very difficult protein clump to break up, like those seen in neurodegenerative disease protein inclusions, it actually becomes very important."
Shorter and his collaborators used small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) to examine the role of the Hsp104 N-terminal domain by deleting it from the enzyme and testing it under different conditions. When Hsp104 lacking the NTD (Hsp104N) is introduced into the formation of the Sup35 prions in a test tube, it promoted prion formation, instead of solubilizing prions. The researchers also observed that, while Hsp104 attacks the Sup35 prion by breaking up the head and tail contacts that hold the prion together, Hsp104N was unable to do likewise. Hsp104N is able to dissolve disordered protein aggregates but cannot break down prions due to their increased stability.
Sweeny found that Hsp104 normally shaped like a short, hexagonal tube -- works like a peristaltic pump that shuttles molecules through its central channel. ATP, the cells energy molecule, is the fuel that powers the pump.
The altered structure of Hsp104N greatly impairs this normal mechanism, affecting its ability to break apart Sup35 and other prions. Sweeny notes, "Hsp104 extracts individual proteins from the prion fibril by pumping them through its central channel and that's how it dissolves them. The N-terminal domain of Hsp104 allows the enzyme to function in a more powerful way that enables dissolution of the very stable Sup35 yeast prion."
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Story highlights The Open Worm Project aims to recreate the behavior of the common roundworm in a machine The open source project has taken four years to model 302 of the worm's neurons in its software It had its first major breakthrough recently when the software independently controlled a Legobot The robot mimicked some of the behaviors of the worm, responding to external stimulus through sensors
Called the Open Worm Project, the research brings together scientists and programmers from around the world with the aim of recreating the behavior of the common roundworm (Caenorhabditis elegans) in a machine.
The open source project recently had its first major breakthrough when its software -- modeled on the neurons of the worm's nervous system -- independently controlled a Lego robot.
The machine's sensors, without any prior programming, made the robot behave in a similar fashion to C. elegans, approaching and backing away from obstacles or stimulated by food.
While the developers say it will be some time before the Lego bot will be avoiding predators or searching for a mate, scientists say the project shows that artificial intelligence, or AI as it is known, is coming out of the realm of science fiction.
"We've been working on it for four years and while we have a lot more to achieve it's been the most surprising project I've been involved in," project coordinator Stephen Larson told CNN. "It's certainly exceeded my expectations."
With the worm's nose neurons replaced by a sonar sensor and the motor neurons running down both sides of the worm replicated on the left and right motors of the Lego bot, the robot could emulate the worm's biological wiring.
Larson said that while the open source project is still awaiting peer review, and the scientists and researchers in the experiment are reluctant to make any bold claims about how closely it resembled biological behavior, the result were nevertheless impressive.
"We definitely have further to go, but I think what captures people's imagination is how much information we have managed to put together," Larson said.
"We know we have the correct number of neurons, we have them connected together in roughly the same way that the animal has, and they're organized in the same way in that there are some neurons that give out information and other neurons that receive information."
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Recently published Future of Life Institute (FLI) letter Research Priorities for Robust and Beneficial Artificial Intelligence, signed by hundreds of AI researchers, many representing government regulators, some sitting on committees with names like Presidential Panel on Long Term AI future, in addition to the likes of Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking, offers a program professing to protect the mankind from the threat of super-intelligent AIs. In a contrarian view, I believe, that should they succeed, rather than upcoming salvation, we will see a 21st century version of 17th century Salem Witch trials instead, where technologies competing with AI will be tried and burned at stake, with much fanfare and applause from mainstream press.
Before I proceed to my concerns, some background on AI. For last 50 years AI researchers promise to deliver intelligent computers, which always seem to be five years in the future. For example, Dharmendra Modha, in charge of IBMs Synapse neuromorphic chips claimed two or three years ago that IBM will deliver computer equivalent of human brain by 2018. I have heard echo of this claim in statements of virtually all recently funded AI and Deep Learning companies. Press accepts these claims with the same gullibility it displayed during Apple Siris launch and hails arrival of the brain like computing as a fait accompli. I believe this is very far from the truth.
The investments on the other hand are real, with old AI technologies dressed up in new clothes of Deep Learning. I addition to acquiring Deep Mind, Google hired Geoffrey Hintons University of Toronto team as well as Ray Kurzweil whose primary motivation for joining Google Brain seems to be the opportunity to upload his brain into vast Google supercomputer. Baidu invested $300M in Stanford University Andrew Ngs Deep Learning lab, Facebook and Zuckerberg personally invested $55M in Vicarious and hired Yann LeCun, the other deep learning guru. Samsung and Intel invested in Expect labs and Reactor, Qualcomm made a sizable investment in BrainCorp. While some progress in speech processing and image recognition will be made, it will not be sufficient to justify lofty valuations of recent funding events.
[ Also on Insights:Artificial Intelligence and the Transformation of Healthcare ]
While my background is in fact in AI, I worked for last few years closely with preeminent neural scientist, Walter Freeman at Berkeley on a new kind of wearable personal assistant, one based not on AI but on neural science. During this time, I came to the conclusion that symbol based computing technologies, including point-to-point deep neural networks (not neural science) can not possibly deliver on claims made by many of these well funded AI labs and startups. Here are just three of the reasons:
Each of the above three empirical findings invalidates AIs symbolic, computation approach. I could provide more but it is hard to fight prevalent cultural myths perpetuated by mass media. Movies are a good example. At the beginning of the movie Transcendence, Johnny Depps character, an AI researcher (from Berkeley:), makes bold claim that just one AI will be smarter than the entire population of humans that ever lived on earth. By my calculation this estimate is incorrect today by almost 20 orders of magnitude, it will take more than a few years to bridge this gap.
Which brings me back to the FLI letter. While individual investors have every right to lose their assets, problem gets much more complicated when government regulators are involved. Here are the the main claims of the letter I have problem with (quotes from the letter in italics):
Why should government regulators support technology which failed to deliver on its promises repeatedly for 50 years? Newly emerging branches of neural science which made major breakthroughs in last years are of much greater promise, in many cases exposing glaring weaknesses of AI approach, so it is precisely these groups which will suffer if AI is allowed to regulate the direction of future research of intellect, whether human or artificial. Neural scientists study actual brains with imaging techniques such as fMRI, EEG, ECOG, etc and then postulate predictions about their structure and function from the empirical data they gathered. The more neural research progresses, the clearer it becomes that brain is vastly more complex than we thought just a few decades ago.
AI researchers on the other hand start with a priori assumption that brain quite simple, really just a carbon version of Von Neumann CPU. As Google Brain AI researcher and FLI letter signatory Illya Sutskever recently told me, brain absolutely is just a CPU and further study of brain would be a waste of my time. This is almost word for word repetition of famous statement of Noam Chomsky made decades ago predicting the existence of language generator in brain.
FLI letter signatories say: Do not to worry, we will allow good AI and identify research directions in order to maximize societal benefits and eradicate diseases and poverty. I believe that it would be precisely the newly emerging neural science groups which would suffer if AI is allowed to regulate research direction in this field. Why should evidence like this allow AI scientists to control what biologists and neural scientists can and can not do?
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Acutonics, Oriental Medicine, and Point Poetics
Acutonics is rooted in Oriental medicine and Taoist spiritual traditions, related to nature, the natural cycles of the world, and the wisdom traditions of Oriental medicine. Understanding the...
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Origins of Acutonics Integrative Medicine
The Origins of Acutonics is explored with Acutonics co-founders Donna Carey, LAc and Ellen F. Franklin, PhD. Donna #39;s near death experience in which she heard the Music of the Spheres became...
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Acutonics Integrative Medicine
This video provides a brief description of Acutonics from co-founders, Donna Carey, LAc and Ellen F. Franklin, PhD. Vibrational sound healing, rooted in Oriental medicine, Taoist philosophy,...
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Acutonics Harmonic Medicine and the Language of Sound
The language of sound and the physical impact of sound on the body is discussed in this video which features Ellen F. Franklin and senior Acutonics faculty members Katie Mink, LAc and Laurie...
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Acutonics Harmonic Medicine and the Language of Sound - Video
Family medicine in Gezira State | Abdulnasser Abu Zaid | TEDxGeziraUniversity
This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. Dr.Abdulnasser is talkin about The Porgram of Family medicine pract...
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Family medicine in Gezira State | Abdulnasser Abu Zaid | TEDxGeziraUniversity - Video
Internal Medicine Associates Murfreesboro Review Murfreesboro,TN Docter Review
Internal Medicine Associates is a top quality health care provider here in Murfreesboro, TN. People in town have been talking about them and some of the reviews you should see for yourself!...
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Internal Medicine Associates Murfreesboro Review Murfreesboro,TN Docter Review - Video
1957 Shoot Out at Medicine Bend Randolph Scott; James Garner; Angie Dickinson
During the mid-1800s, presumably the 60s or 70s have just been released from the military. The Captain of the bunch, Buck Devlin, played by Randolph Scott, was taking his comrades, John, (James...
By: Charles L Dick Jr
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1957 Shoot Out at Medicine Bend Randolph Scott; James Garner; Angie Dickinson - Video
Pushing Boundaries in Veterinary Medicine | Dr. Dave Cartledge | TEDxRedDeer
This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. Coming Soon! Dr. Dave Cartledge has been a Companion Animal Veterinarian in Toronto, Brooklyn and...
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Pushing Boundaries in Veterinary Medicine | Dr. Dave Cartledge | TEDxRedDeer - Video