Astronomy Cast 357: Vera Rubin
By: Fraser Cain
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KALIAMBOS – AMPHIPOLIS TOMB (ASTRONOMY AND PUZZLE) – Video
KALIAMBOS - AMPHIPOLIS TOMB (ASTRONOMY AND PUZZLE)
My discovery of the diameter d of the Amphipolis tomb circular base (d =1 Alexandrian stadion = 157.5 m) confirms the measurements of the Greek mathematician Eratosthenes ( 250 BC ) who found...
By: Lefteris Kaliambos
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The answer is blowing in the intergalactic wind
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
13-Nov-2014
Contact: Chris Sasaki media@dunlap.utoronto.ca 416-978-6613 Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics @dunlapinstitute
TORONTO, ON (13 November 2014) Astronomers from the University of Toronto and the University of Arizona have provided the first direct evidence that an intergalactic "wind" is stripping galaxies of star-forming gas as they fall into clusters of galaxies. The observations help explain why galaxies found in clusters are known to have relatively little gas and less star formation when compared to non-cluster or "field" galaxies.
Astronomers have theorized that as a field galaxy falls into a cluster of galaxies, it encounters the cloud of hot gas at the centre of the cluster. As the galaxy moves through this intra-cluster medium at thousands of kilometres per second, the cloud acts like a wind, blowing away the gas within the galaxy without disturbing its stars. The process is known as ram-pressure stripping.
Previously, astronomers had seen the very tenuous atomic hydrogen gas surrounding a galaxy get stripped. But it was believed that the denser molecular hydrogen clouds where stars form would be more resistant to the wind. "However, we found that the molecular hydrogen gas is also blown from the in-falling galaxy," says Suresh Sivanandam of the Dunlap Institute at the University of Toronto, "much like smoke blown from a candle being carried into a room."
Previous observations showed indirect evidence of ram-pressure stripping of star-forming gas. Astronomers have observed young stars trailing from a galaxy; the stars would have formed from gas newly-stripped from the galaxy. A few galaxies also have tails of very tenuous gas. But the latest observations show the stripped, molecular hydrogen itself, which can be seen as a wake trailing from the galaxy in the direction opposite to its motion.
"For more than 40 years we have been trying to understand why galaxies in dense clusters have so few young stars compared with ones like our Milky Way Galaxy, but now we see the quenching of star formation in action," says George Rieke of the University of Arizona. "Cutting off the gas that forms stars is a key step in the evolution of galaxies from the early Universe to the present."
The results, published in the Astrophysical Journal on Nov. 10, are from observations of four galaxies. Sivanandam, Rieke and colleague Marcia Rieke (also from the University of Arizona) had already established that one of the four galaxies had been stripped of its star-forming gas by this wind. But by observing four galaxies, they have now shown that this effect is common.
The team made their analysis using optical, infrared and hydrogen-emission data from the Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes, as well as archival ground-based data. The team used an infrared spectrograph on the Spitzer because direct observation of the molecular hydrogen required observations in the mid-infrared part of the spectrum--something that's almost impossible to do from the ground.
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Jupiter's Great Red Spot Likely One Big UV 'Sunburn'
Jupiters Great Red Spot, which has tantalized astronomers for centuries, may be caused by something as surprisingly mundane as ultraviolet (UV) tanning at extremely high altitude, say researchers at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
New analysis of NASA Cassini mission observations made during a December 2000 Jupiter flyby, coupled with ground-based lab experiments, point to very high altitude solar photolysis (or the molecular breakup) of ammonia and hydrocarbons at the top of this puzzling red vortex, located in our largest planets southern hemisphere.
High altitude UV radiation from the sun photolyzes ammonia and hydrocarbons, such as methane, in close proximity with each other and in the process creates a bright red cyanide-like molecule, Kevin Baines, a planetary scientist and JPL Cassini team member, told Forbes.
Research suggests effects of sunlight produce the color of Jupiters Great Red Spot. The features clouds are much higher than those elsewhere on the planet, and its vortex nature confines the reddish particles once they form. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ Space Science Institute
This week, Baines outlined his and colleagues new hypothesis about the chemical processes that drive the oval-shaped Great Red Spot during a divisional meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Tucson. Baines says this whole process depends on having aerosols, particularly ammonia ice particles, lofted upwards to a very high part of the atmosphere where the sunlight is not filtered by overlying gases. As a result, he says, the clouds inside are more susceptible to UV photolysis.
The Red Spot reaches a very high altitude; about 50,000 ft higher than other [nearby] clouds, said Baines. The sunlight is more powerful and direct and
Baines and colleagues used spectral images of the Red Spot, taken by Cassinis Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) to gain new insight into the Red Spots inner workings and as a basis of comparison for their ground-based lab work.
Using a JPL lab, the team performed UV photolysis of acetylene and ammonia, both of which are found in Jupiters atmosphere, and were able to recreate the colors that they see in the planets signature spot.
But why is this Great Spot Red?
This upper layer cooks and turns red, says Baines. As he explains, ammonia-laced clouds whirl around this rarefied upper atmospheric layer in which UV radiation splits an atom of hydrogen from a molecule of ammonia. This free hydrogen atom in turn then runs around and couples with carbon and hydrogen atoms stripped from broken molecules of methane (or some other hydrocarbon) to create a form of red cyanide; providing the Red Spot with its color.
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6 Trends in Translational Science that Will Improve Your Health
Grady, MD, MPH, is interim director of CTSI
Translational science, also known as bench-to-bedside research, aims to translate biomedical discoveries into useful applications and treatments, such as a drug, device, diagnostic or behavioral intervention, that impact health and health outcomes.
At UC San Francisco, my colleagues and I at the UCSF Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) are collaborating and innovating in ways that are transforming health care as we know it.
We're also looking ahead at the trends and influences that are reshaping and more importantly, accelerating translational science, all with a focus on improving health. We partnered with Carry The One Radio to produce podcasts on each of the trends. Learn more about them below, or listen to the full playlist here.
What does it look like when academic medical institutions reimagine industry-academic partnerships?
June Lee, MD, FACCP, director of CTSI Early Translational Research, and her colleague, Danielle Schlosser, PhD, an assistant professor in the UCSF School of Medicine, explain how the UCSF-CTSI Catalyst Awards program is expanding the role that industry experts play in accelerating research. In particular, that involves customized consultations to help researchers navigate the lengthy and complex process of translating big ideas and exciting discoveries into therapeutics, diagnostics, devices and digital health solutions that improve health.
Multidisciplinary collaboration, or team science, may seem like an obvious way to conduct research.
Dan Lowenstein, MD, professor of Neurology in the UCSF School of Medicine, explains that the concept of team science is actually revolutionary.
As a leader in the Epilepsy Phenome/Genome Project a collaboration that includes 27 clinical centers and more than 100 scientists and clinicians worldwide Lowenstein and his team are part of that revolution by rethinking how research happens, and creating models that encourage and support change.
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6 Trends in Translational Science that Will Improve Your Health
Science Documentary: Stem Cells,Regenerative Medicine,Artificial Heart,a future medicine documentary – Video
Science Documentary: Stem Cells,Regenerative Medicine,Artificial Heart,a future medicine documentary
Science Documentary: Stem Cells,Regenerative Medicine,Artificial Heart,a future medicine documentary In each and every one of our organs and tissue, we have stem cells. These stem cells...
By: ScienceRound
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Smart bombs that can pick whom to kill
Los Angeles: On a bright fall day last year off the coast of Southern California, an Air Force B-1 bomber launched an experimental missile that may herald the future of warfare.
Initially, pilots aboard the plane directed the missile, but halfway to its destination it severed communication with its operators. Alone, without human oversight, the missile decided which of three ships to attack, dropping to just above the sea surface and striking a 260-foot (80-metre) unmanned freighter.
Warfare is increasingly guided by software. Today, armed drones can be operated by remote pilots peering into video screens thousands of miles from the battlefield. But now, some scientists say, arms-makers have crossed into troubling territory: They are developing weapons that rely on artificial intelligence, not human instruction, to decide what to target and whom to kill.
As these weapons become smarter and nimbler, critics fear they will become increasingly difficult for humans to control or to defend against. And while pinpoint accuracy could save civilian lives, critics fear weapons without human oversight could make war more likely, as easy as flipping a switch.
Britain, Israel and Norway are already deploying missiles and drones that carry out attacks against enemy radar, tanks or ships without direct human control.
After launch, so-called autonomous weapons rely on artificial intelligence and their own sensors to select targets and to initiate an attack.
Britains fire and forget Brimstone missiles, for example, can distinguish among tanks and cars and buses without human assistance, and can hunt targets in a predesignated region without oversight. The Brimstones also communicate with one another, sharing their targets.
Armaments with even more advanced self-governance are on the drawing board, although the details usually are kept secret.
An autonomous weapons arms race is already taking place, said Steve Omohundro, a physicist and artificial intelligence specialist at Self-Aware Systems, a Palo Alto, California, research centre. They can respond faster, more efficiently and less predictably.
Concerned by the prospect of a robotics arms race, representatives from dozens of nations will meet on Thursday in Geneva to consider whether development of these weapons should be restricted by the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. Christof Heyns, the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, last year called for a moratorium on the development of these weapons altogether.
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IoT Wont Work Without Artificial Intelligence
As the Internet of Things (IoT) continues its run as one of the most popular technology buzzwords of the year, the discussion has turned from what it is, to how to drive value from it, to the tactical: how to make it work.
IoT will produce a treasure trove of big data data that can help cities predict accidents and crimes, give doctors real-time insight into information from pacemakers or biochips, enable optimized productivity across industries through predictive maintenance on equipment and machinery, create truly smart homes with connected appliances and provide critical communication between self-driving cars. The possibilities that IoT brings to the table are endless.
As the rapid expansion of devices and sensors connected to the Internet of Things continues, the sheer volume of data being created by them will increase to a mind-boggling level. This data will hold extremely valuable insight into whats working well or whats not pointing out conflicts that arise and providing high-value insight into new business risks and opportunities as correlations and associations are made.
It sounds great. However, the big problem will be finding ways to analyze the deluge of performance data and information that all these devices create. If youve ever tried to find insight in terabytes of machine data, you know how hard this can be. Its simply impossible for humans to review and understand all of this data and doing so with traditional methods, even if you cut down the sample size, simply takes too much time.
We need to improve the speed and accuracy of big data analysis in order for IoT to live up to its promise. If we dont, the consequences could be disastrous and could range from the annoying like home appliances that dont work together as advertised to the life-threatening pacemakers malfunctioning or hundred car pileups.
The only way to keep up with this IoT-generated data and gain the hidden insight it holds is with machine learning.
Wikipedia defines machine learning as a subfield of computer science (CS) and artificial intelligence (AI) that deals with the construction and study of systems that can learn from data, rather than follow only explicitly programmed instructions.
While this may sound a bit like science fiction, its already present in everyday life. For example, its used by Pandora to determine what other songs you may like, or by Amazon.com to suggest other books and movies to you. Both are based on what has been learned about the user and are refined over time as the system learns more about your behaviors.
In an IoT situation, machine learning can help companies take the billions of data points they have and boil them down to whats really meaningful. The general premise is the same as in the retail applications review and analyze the data youve collected to find patterns or similarities that can be learned from, so that better decisions can be made.
For example, wearable devices that track your health are already a burgeoning industry but soon these will evolve to become devices that are both inter-connected and connected to the internet, tracking your health and providing real-time updates to a health service.
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World wary as bombs, not humans, pick whom to kill
On a bright fall day last year off the coast of Southern California, an Air Force B-1 bomber launched an experimental missile that may herald the future of warfare.
Initially, pilots aboard the plane directed the missile, but halfway to its destination, it severed communication with its operators. Alone, without human oversight, the missile decided which of three ships to attack, dropping to just above the sea surface and striking a 260-foot unmanned freighter.
Warfare is increasingly guided by software. Today, armed drones can be operated by remote pilots peering into video screens thousands of miles from the battlefield. But now, some scientists say, arms makers have crossed into troubling territory: They are developing weapons that rely on artificial intelligence, not human instruction, to decide what to target and whom to kill.
As these weapons become smarter and nimbler, critics fear they will become increasingly difficult for humans to control or to defend against. And while pinpoint accuracy could save civilian lives, critics fear weapons without human oversight could make war more likely, as easy as flipping a switch.
Britain, Israel and Norway are already deploying missiles and drones that carry out attacks against enemy radar, tanks or ships without direct human control. After launch, so-called autonomous weapons rely on artificial intelligence and sensors to select targets and to initiate an attack.
(A B-1 bomber deploys a Long Range Anti-Ship Missile. The missiles are designed to select and strike targets without human oversight)
Britain's "fire and forget" Brimstone missiles, for example, can distinguish among tanks and cars and buses without human assistance, and can hunt targets in a predesignated region without oversight. The Brimstones also communicate with one another, sharing their targets.
Armaments with even more advanced self-governance are on the drawing board, although the details usually are kept secret. "An autonomous weapons arms race is already taking place," said Steve Omohundro, a physicist and artificial intelligence specialist at Self-Aware Systems, a research center in Palo Alto, Calif. "They can respond faster, more efficiently and less predictably."
Concerned by the prospect of a robotics arms race, representatives from dozens of nations will meet on Thursday in Geneva to consider whether development of these weapons should be restricted by the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. Christof Heyns, the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, last year called for a moratorium on the development of these weapons.
The Pentagon has issued a directive requiring high-level authorization for the development of weapons capable of killing without human oversight. But fast-moving technology has already made the directive obsolete, some scientists say.
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Julia Ward MD A4M Anti-Aging Medicine – Video
Julia Ward MD A4M Anti-Aging Medicine
Meet Julia Ward MD from the A4M Anti-Aging Medicine Fellowship.
By: Phil Grindstone
Joe Rogan Experience #574 – Dr. Mark Gordon, Matthew Gosney & Jason Hall – Video
Joe Rogan Experience #574 - Dr. Mark Gordon, Matthew Gosney Jason Hall
Dr. Mark Gordon is the Medical Director of Education at Access Medical Laboratory and is recognized as a top leader world wide in Interventional Endocrinology (Anti Aging Medicine). Matthew...
By: PowerfulJRE
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Joe Rogan Experience #574 - Dr. Mark Gordon, Matthew Gosney & Jason Hall - Video
Aerospace Conference 2015 – Video
Aerospace Conference 2015
By: Areospace Conference
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Metro partners with aerospace leaders to address workforce demands
Tanya Gatlin, a professor at Metropolitan State University of Denver, sits in the cockpit of a flight simulator in the World Indoor Airport Laboratories. (Cyrus McCrimmon, The Denver Post)
A new collaboration among higher education, the private sector and the government soon could provide Colorado's aerospace industry with a completely homegrown and specialized workforce.
Metropolitan State University of Denver is combining aerospace science and aviation, industrial design, engineering, computer sciences and physics study into a multidisciplinary advanced manufacturing curriculum designed to train the next generation of Colorado aerospace workers.
And they're doing it by working hand in hand with several of the state's aerospace and aviation giants, such as Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Jeppeson Aviation.
"This is focused on the workforce. We're moving in to fill a niche that hasn't been filled yet," Metro State president Stephen Jordan said. "What does not exist in Colorado has been a bit of a hindrance in terms of getting advanced manufacturing companies to the state."
The program works in concert with President Barack Obama's Advanced Manufacturing Partnership initiatives, designed to strengthen ties among higher education, the private sector and the government to boost the country's ability to innovate and create jobs at home.
After meeting with White House officials, Jordan set out to create the new program, meeting with aerospace industry leaders and learning about their immediate workforce needs.
"We spent time talking with folks in advanced manufacturing and the aerospace section, asking, 'What do you need in hard skills and soft skills?' " Jordan said. "We then gave them a curriculum and said, 'This is what we heard you say. Did we get it right?' It's very much been a listening process with the private sector."
Although many feel college is the time for free thought and experimentation, Jordan said industry influence will not hinder creativity.
"You would be blown away on how much emphasis is on critical thinking, writing and teamwork," Jordan said. "Engineering schools produce engineers that are great engineers, but that's just one part of it they don't know how to communicate."
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Metro partners with aerospace leaders to address workforce demands
Former NATO General Kujat: I don’t believe in evidence of Russian invasion – Video
Former NATO General Kujat: I don #39;t believe in evidence of Russian invasion
Former Chairman of the NATO Military Committee and Chief of Staff of the German Federal Armed Forces Harald Kujat: I don #39;t believe in evidence of Russian invasion.
By: Russia Insider
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Former NATO General Kujat: I don't believe in evidence of Russian invasion - Video
Russian Flights Test NATO – Video
Russian Flights Test NATO
A London-based security think tank is accusing Russia of dangerous brinkmanship through what it calls a highly disturbing series of airspace violations, close encounters at sea...
By: VOAvideo
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NATO says Russia sent more troops to Ukraine. Russians say NATO full of 'hot air'
Sofia, Bulgaria/Moscow NATO's top commander says new columns of Russian troops and tanks have rolled into eastern Ukraine, the claim promptly denied by Moscow.
US Gen. Philip Breedlove said Wednesday that in the last two days "we have seen columns of Russian equipment, primarily Russian tanks, Russian artillery, Russian air defense systems and Russian combat troops entering into Ukraine."
Breedlove, who spoke in Sofia, Bulgaria wouldn't say how many fresh troops and weapons have moved into Ukraine and wouldn't specify how the alliance obtained the information. The Russian Defense Ministry quickly rejected Breedlove's statement as groundless.
The West and Ukraine have continuously accused Moscow of fueling a pro-Russian insurgency in eastern Ukraine with troops and weapons the claims Russia has rejected.
Breedlove said the Russia-Ukraine border "is completely wide-open."
General-Major Igor Konashenkov, a Russian Defense Ministry official, dismissed the comments as anti-Russian "hot air" and said "there was and is no evidence" behind the NATO accusations.
"We have already stopped paying attention to unsubstantiated statements by NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Philip Breedlove, on Russian military convoys he 'observed' allegedly invading Ukraine," Konashenkov said.
The West has imposed sanctions on Russia over the crisis in Ukraine, saying Moscow has provided the rebels with arms and reinforced them with troops since they rose up a month Russia annexed the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine in March.
Breedlove said in Bulgaria that NATO had seen "Russian equipment, primarily Russian tanks, Russian artillery, Russian air defense systems and Russian combat troops entering into Ukraine" in recent days.
Fighting has intensified around the rebel stronghold of Donetsk in east Ukraine, putting further pressure on a patchy ceasefire between rivals. Kiev says it is redeploying forces to prepare for a possible new rebel offensive.
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NATO says Russia sent more troops to Ukraine. Russians say NATO full of 'hot air'
NATO intercepts 19 Russian planes
NATO says it has tracked and intercepted four groups of Russian warplanes 'conducting significant military manoeuvres' in European airspace over the past two days.
'These sizeable Russian flights represent an unusual level of air activity over European airspace,' NATO said on Wednesday.
The planes, which included strategic bombers, fighters and tanker aircraft, were detected over the Baltic Sea, North Sea/Atlantic Ocean and the Black Sea on Tuesday and Wednesday, it said.
NATO allies sent up aircraft to intercept and identify the Russian planes which were continually tracked on the ground as well, it said in a report from its SHAPE military headquarters in Mons, western Belgium.
The report made no mention of the Ukraine crisis nor linked the increased activity to it.
However, Russia's intervention in Ukraine, which NATO has said constitutes the most serious threat to US-Europe security since the Cold War, has sent tensions soaring.
NATO's eastern members, many of them such as Poland and the Baltic states once ruled from Moscow, have been particularly nervous and the US-led alliance has put in place additional aircraft and personnel on a rotating basis to reassure them.
Russia's intervention and the speed with which it was able to bring military pressure to bear on Kiev in support of pro-Moscow rebels in Ukraine's east surprised many and badly rattled countries on NATO's eastern flank.
In a breakdown of the incidents, NATO said that in the early hours Wednesday, eight Russian aircraft -- four TU-95 strategic bombers, capable of carrying nuclear weapons, and four tankers -- were detected over the North Sea, flying in international airspace.
Four Norwegian F-16 fighters were sent up to intercept them.
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courts hears arguments on constitutionality of NSA collection of phone calls – Video
courts hears arguments on constitutionality of NSA collection of phone calls
By: mikeroweRules12
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courts hears arguments on constitutionality of NSA collection of phone calls - Video
Flashback: John Kerry Says Some NSA Spying Went Too Far – Video
Flashback: John Kerry Says Some NSA Spying Went Too Far
Flashback: Secretary of State John Kerry says that some NSA spying went too far. On the Bonus Show: DARPA #39;s drone experiment, clever way to study penguins, ...
By: David Pakman Show
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Flashback: John Kerry Says Some NSA Spying Went Too Far - Video