Ah, Alex Jones. The kind of twit who makes you think, "damn, I wish eugenics had worked". Or possibly, "but Alex, how are you able to talk ? Don't you need that brain cell to keep your heart beating ?" Honestly, I'm not able to understand how people who take Alex Jones seriously are able to make it through the day without clobbering themselves to death with a poodle, or something.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyGq6cjcc3Q
Monday 31 July 2017
London's early attempts to outdo the Eiffel Tower
Fascinating series of crazy designs. While, "we must frankly admit that none excels the Eiffel Tower in beauty and grace", they certainly exceeded it in madness.
Charles Baillairgé, City Engineer of Quebec City, had the most novel approach to dealing with wind pressure. His 1,600-foot circular design was fully enclosed and was expected to withstand most winds. But, as he put it, “The factor of safety would be increased if the glazing were to be blown out in a hurricane.” Never mind any personal injury from glass shards being blown about.
Other designers also suggested locomotives, one even trained mules, but none so quintessentially Victorian as Max Am Ende’s gothic tower, which featured “a Spiral Railway, worked by steam.” In order to maintain the decorum so highly prized by Victorians, the railway would offer first-, second-, and third-class carriages.
The design by J.H.M. Harrison-Vasey would, at 1,820 feet, be hard to miss and not much of it appears to have escaped decoration. He eschewed elevators and proposed “a spiral road of about 2½ miles under which a descending Railway is constructed, the incline of both being 1 in 20.” Perhaps the most intriguing feature was the “captive parachute to hold 4 persons, led in guides…fitted in one of the corner towers, and regulated by a brake.”
https://parisianfields.com/2014/11/16/a-doomed-attempt-at-out-eiffelling-eiffel/
Charles Baillairgé, City Engineer of Quebec City, had the most novel approach to dealing with wind pressure. His 1,600-foot circular design was fully enclosed and was expected to withstand most winds. But, as he put it, “The factor of safety would be increased if the glazing were to be blown out in a hurricane.” Never mind any personal injury from glass shards being blown about.
Other designers also suggested locomotives, one even trained mules, but none so quintessentially Victorian as Max Am Ende’s gothic tower, which featured “a Spiral Railway, worked by steam.” In order to maintain the decorum so highly prized by Victorians, the railway would offer first-, second-, and third-class carriages.
The design by J.H.M. Harrison-Vasey would, at 1,820 feet, be hard to miss and not much of it appears to have escaped decoration. He eschewed elevators and proposed “a spiral road of about 2½ miles under which a descending Railway is constructed, the incline of both being 1 in 20.” Perhaps the most intriguing feature was the “captive parachute to hold 4 persons, led in guides…fitted in one of the corner towers, and regulated by a brake.”
https://parisianfields.com/2014/11/16/a-doomed-attempt-at-out-eiffelling-eiffel/
Friday 28 July 2017
Justice and tolerance are neither the same nor mutually exclusive
It's not intolerance we shouldn't tolerate, it's injustice. Many forms of intolerance have nothing whatsoever to do with justice : someone may refuse to watch an entire game of golf, and quite rightly so because it's feckin' dull. That intolerance isn't injustice. If they extended their own opinion of golf towards others, however, if they banned other people from watching golf because they themselves didn't enjoy it, then that's injustice. Plato's definition of justice as "minding one's own business" has some merit.
Justice and toleration are different things, though they aren't mutually exclusive. Tolerating someone's opinion is one thing, tolerating their actions quite another. Holding an opinion doesn't inflict injustice by itself, but actions (which can include, in some circumstances, the expression of that opinion) can. Tolerating injustice is to allow injustice to continue. Justice is in some cases necessarily very intolerant; in others it demands tolerance.
The intoleration of injustice can mean many things. It doesn't have to always be the extreme condition of legislation or banning. It can start with simply refusing to participate in certain actions and speaking out against them.
It's no good wailing about how people are intolerant, because intolerance isn't an evil in itself. Injustice is what you should be fighting against. Those who seek to restrict the rights of others and then claim that it's unfair that people are seeking to prevent them have missed the whole point.
Thursday 27 July 2017
Ultra diffuse galaxies : failed giants or very ambitious dwarves ?
I have a detailed post about this in draft. Something to finish over the weekend !
In general, UDGs appear to have more globular clusters than other galaxies of the same total luminosity, by a factor of nearly 7. These results are consistent with the scenario in which UDGs are failed galaxies: they likely have the halo mass to have formed a large number of globular clusters, but they were quenched before they formed a disk and bulge. Because star formation never got going in UDGs, they are now much dimmer than other galaxies of the same size.
The authors suggest that the next step is to obtain dynamical measurements of the UDGs to determine whether these faint galaxies really do have the halo mass suggested by their large numbers of globulars. Future observations will continue to help us pin down the origin of these dim giants.
On in other words that means this newly-discovered population of galaxies could include significant numbers of giant, almost-dark galaxies. Just how screwed that would leave our theories of galaxy formation depends on the numbers. But AFAIK this method of using the globular clusters to estimate the total mass of galaxies like this has not been well-calibrated, so a high degree of caution is warranted.
http://aasnova.org/2017/07/21/globular-clusters-for-faint-galaxies/
In general, UDGs appear to have more globular clusters than other galaxies of the same total luminosity, by a factor of nearly 7. These results are consistent with the scenario in which UDGs are failed galaxies: they likely have the halo mass to have formed a large number of globular clusters, but they were quenched before they formed a disk and bulge. Because star formation never got going in UDGs, they are now much dimmer than other galaxies of the same size.
The authors suggest that the next step is to obtain dynamical measurements of the UDGs to determine whether these faint galaxies really do have the halo mass suggested by their large numbers of globulars. Future observations will continue to help us pin down the origin of these dim giants.
On in other words that means this newly-discovered population of galaxies could include significant numbers of giant, almost-dark galaxies. Just how screwed that would leave our theories of galaxy formation depends on the numbers. But AFAIK this method of using the globular clusters to estimate the total mass of galaxies like this has not been well-calibrated, so a high degree of caution is warranted.
http://aasnova.org/2017/07/21/globular-clusters-for-faint-galaxies/
VR telecon sounds nice but I just want to stop shouting at people
Facebook is developing a virtual-reality chat room, which it hopes will be the most "immersive" way for people to communicate online. It is promoting the software for its Oculus Rift kit, which has struggled against competition from PlayStation VR and HTC Vive. The BBC's Chris Foxx asked Facebook's Rachel Franklin why people would prefer to make a virtual reality call, rather than a regular video call.
I'd settle for a video call where I spent less than 10% of the time shouting, "HELLO ! CAN YOU HERE ME ? YOU'RE BREAKING UP ! THE PICTURE'S TERRIBLE TODAY !"
Ultimately, VR with realistic avatars might be useful for social calls, but not yet. I can imagine this cartoony style having interesting applications for games, though.
http://www.bbc.com/news/av/technology-40726880/inside-facebook-s-virtual-reality-chat-room
I'd settle for a video call where I spent less than 10% of the time shouting, "HELLO ! CAN YOU HERE ME ? YOU'RE BREAKING UP ! THE PICTURE'S TERRIBLE TODAY !"
Ultimately, VR with realistic avatars might be useful for social calls, but not yet. I can imagine this cartoony style having interesting applications for games, though.
http://www.bbc.com/news/av/technology-40726880/inside-facebook-s-virtual-reality-chat-room
Wednesday 26 July 2017
Banning transgender people from the military is a pure distraction tactic
Well screw you sir. Screw you.
US President Donald Drumpf says transgender people cannot serve in "any capacity" in the military. He tweeted that he had consulted with military experts and cited "tremendous medical costs and disruption". The Obama administration decided last year to allow transgender people to serve openly in the military. But in June, Defence Secretary James Mattis agreed to a six-month delay in the recruitment of transgender people.
The timing of this transgender ban is almost as interesting as the move itself.
Why now? With the Drumpf administration being buffeted by the Jeff Sessions political death watch, the ongoing multi-prong investigation into the Drumpf campaign, the healthcare drama in the Senate and the impending Russian sanctions bill, perhaps the administration decided this was a good time to change the subject and rally conservative forces to his side.
Republicans have long used cultural issues as a wedge to divide Democrats and energise evangelicals. As one White House insider acknowledged, this is straight out of that playbook. While Mr Drumpf campaigned as sympathetic to LGBT rights, he needs the traditional religious conservatives to stay loyal to him now, more than ever.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40729996
US President Donald Drumpf says transgender people cannot serve in "any capacity" in the military. He tweeted that he had consulted with military experts and cited "tremendous medical costs and disruption". The Obama administration decided last year to allow transgender people to serve openly in the military. But in June, Defence Secretary James Mattis agreed to a six-month delay in the recruitment of transgender people.
The timing of this transgender ban is almost as interesting as the move itself.
Why now? With the Drumpf administration being buffeted by the Jeff Sessions political death watch, the ongoing multi-prong investigation into the Drumpf campaign, the healthcare drama in the Senate and the impending Russian sanctions bill, perhaps the administration decided this was a good time to change the subject and rally conservative forces to his side.
Republicans have long used cultural issues as a wedge to divide Democrats and energise evangelicals. As one White House insider acknowledged, this is straight out of that playbook. While Mr Drumpf campaigned as sympathetic to LGBT rights, he needs the traditional religious conservatives to stay loyal to him now, more than ever.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40729996
The differences in dogmatic thinking in theists and atheists
Two studies examine the personality characteristics that drive dogmatism in the religious and nonreligious. They show there are both similarities and important differences in what drives dogmatism in these two groups. In both groups, higher critical reasoning skills were associated with lower levels of dogmatism. But these two groups diverge in how moral concern influences their dogmatic thinking.
"It suggests that religious individuals may cling to certain beliefs, especially those which seem at odds with analytic reasoning, because those beliefs resonate with their moral sentiments"; " Emotional resonance helps religious people to feel more certain—the more moral correctness they see in something, the more it affirms their thinking. In contrast, moral concerns make nonreligious people feel less certain."
Appealing to a religious dogmatist's sense of moral concern and to an anti-religious dogmatist's unemotional logic may increase the chances of getting a message through—or at least some consideration from them.
While more empathy may sound desirable, untempered empathy can be dangerous... "Terrorists, within their bubble, believe it's a highly moral thing they're doing. They believe they are righting wrongs and protecting something sacred."* At the other extreme, despite organizing their life around critical thinking, militant atheists, "may lack the insight to see anything positive about religion; they can only see that it contradicts their scientific, analytical thinking.".
* I'm not sure how this relates to "empathy", it seems if anything to require the exact opposite of empathy.
It would be interesting to do a proper psychological study of militant atheists and the devoutly religious. Personally, I'm dogmatically convinced that they're basically the same. At least, there's a particular subset of militant atheism that defines itself by its non-belief. It's simply a belief that no deity exists rather than a deity exists, but the core of it is the same.
The studies, based on surveys of more than 900 people, also found some similarities between religious and non-religious people. In both groups the most dogmatic are less adept at analytical thinking, and also less likely to look at issues from other's perspectives... Decreasing empathy among the nonreligious corresponded to increasing dogmatism.
The more rigid the individual, whether religious or not, the less likely he or she would consider the perspective of others. Religious fundamentalism was highly correlated with empathetic concern among the religious.
Perhaps they're using a more specialised definition of "empathy" then, like that recent paper which defined "intelligence" and "critical thinking" as two different things (quite properly, I thought). Otherwise I'd say that "considering the perspectives of others" is a very good definition of "empathy".
The researchers say the results of the surveys lend further support to their earlier work showing people have two brain networks—one for empathy and one for analytic thinking – that are in tension with each other. In healthy people, their thought process cycles between the two, choosing the appropriate network for different issues they consider. But in the religious dogmatist's mind, the empathetic network appears to dominate while in the nonreligious dogmatist's mind, the analytic network appears to rule.
And why has phys.org started doing this ultra-annoying thing of magically incorporating "read more at www..." when copying and pasting text ? Who in deity-of-choice's name thought this would be a good idea ? I certainly don't feel any empathy toward that arsehole, that's for darn sure...
https://phys.org/news/2017-07-people-theyre.html
"It suggests that religious individuals may cling to certain beliefs, especially those which seem at odds with analytic reasoning, because those beliefs resonate with their moral sentiments"; " Emotional resonance helps religious people to feel more certain—the more moral correctness they see in something, the more it affirms their thinking. In contrast, moral concerns make nonreligious people feel less certain."
Appealing to a religious dogmatist's sense of moral concern and to an anti-religious dogmatist's unemotional logic may increase the chances of getting a message through—or at least some consideration from them.
While more empathy may sound desirable, untempered empathy can be dangerous... "Terrorists, within their bubble, believe it's a highly moral thing they're doing. They believe they are righting wrongs and protecting something sacred."* At the other extreme, despite organizing their life around critical thinking, militant atheists, "may lack the insight to see anything positive about religion; they can only see that it contradicts their scientific, analytical thinking.".
* I'm not sure how this relates to "empathy", it seems if anything to require the exact opposite of empathy.
It would be interesting to do a proper psychological study of militant atheists and the devoutly religious. Personally, I'm dogmatically convinced that they're basically the same. At least, there's a particular subset of militant atheism that defines itself by its non-belief. It's simply a belief that no deity exists rather than a deity exists, but the core of it is the same.
The studies, based on surveys of more than 900 people, also found some similarities between religious and non-religious people. In both groups the most dogmatic are less adept at analytical thinking, and also less likely to look at issues from other's perspectives... Decreasing empathy among the nonreligious corresponded to increasing dogmatism.
The more rigid the individual, whether religious or not, the less likely he or she would consider the perspective of others. Religious fundamentalism was highly correlated with empathetic concern among the religious.
Perhaps they're using a more specialised definition of "empathy" then, like that recent paper which defined "intelligence" and "critical thinking" as two different things (quite properly, I thought). Otherwise I'd say that "considering the perspectives of others" is a very good definition of "empathy".
The researchers say the results of the surveys lend further support to their earlier work showing people have two brain networks—one for empathy and one for analytic thinking – that are in tension with each other. In healthy people, their thought process cycles between the two, choosing the appropriate network for different issues they consider. But in the religious dogmatist's mind, the empathetic network appears to dominate while in the nonreligious dogmatist's mind, the analytic network appears to rule.
And why has phys.org started doing this ultra-annoying thing of magically incorporating "read more at www..." when copying and pasting text ? Who in deity-of-choice's name thought this would be a good idea ? I certainly don't feel any empathy toward that arsehole, that's for darn sure...
https://phys.org/news/2017-07-people-theyre.html
Watersheep Down
D'aaaawwwww !
In the midst of widespread flooding in Otago and Canterbury, a small colony of rabbits rode to safety on the back of a flock of sheep. The rabbits hopped their way out of disaster onto the back of sheep on a Taieri Plains farm, west of Mosgiel.
Ferg Horne went to check on the sheep next to his Riccarton Rd West farm on Saturday morning as his neighbour was on holiday in Russia. "They were standing in the middle of the paddock on a high spot in about three inches of water," he said.
As Horne got closer, he thought the sheep must have been under water at some stage because they had debris on their backs. "I got over there and it was rabbits." Horne, 64, said he had never seen anything like it in his close to 50 years in farming.
"They must've jumped up onto their backs to get out of the flood. There was two on one sheep and one on another. "They were as happy as can be those rabbits; they were warm and dry, snuggled up."
https://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/95087758/rabbits-in-otago-ride-out-of-flood-on-woolly-sheep
In the midst of widespread flooding in Otago and Canterbury, a small colony of rabbits rode to safety on the back of a flock of sheep. The rabbits hopped their way out of disaster onto the back of sheep on a Taieri Plains farm, west of Mosgiel.
Ferg Horne went to check on the sheep next to his Riccarton Rd West farm on Saturday morning as his neighbour was on holiday in Russia. "They were standing in the middle of the paddock on a high spot in about three inches of water," he said.
As Horne got closer, he thought the sheep must have been under water at some stage because they had debris on their backs. "I got over there and it was rabbits." Horne, 64, said he had never seen anything like it in his close to 50 years in farming.
"They must've jumped up onto their backs to get out of the flood. There was two on one sheep and one on another. "They were as happy as can be those rabbits; they were warm and dry, snuggled up."
https://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/95087758/rabbits-in-otago-ride-out-of-flood-on-woolly-sheep
Russian cat adopts eight hedgehogs
Eight orphaned hedgehogs have survived against the odds at a zoo in the Russian city of Vladivostok, after a kindly cat became their surrogate mum. Muska the cat adopted the spiky brood after their mother died in a lawn-mowing accident.
The tiny hoglets, as they are known, had refused milk from a syringe, a bottle, and a saucer for two days, according to Sadgorod Zoo. At night, the babies had a heating pad to stimulate their digestion. Still, nothing helped.
As Muska had recently raised a litter of foster kittens, she had milk to offer - so the zoo decided to try the unusual pairing. The hungry orphans reacted to her bodily warmth and the smell of milk, and soon began to nurse. The good-natured cat proceeded to feed the hedgehogs for more than a week and comfort them at night, Russia's Vesti reports.
The fragile youngsters are now eating on their own, although their feline guardian is still keeping an eye on proceedings.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-40720327
The tiny hoglets, as they are known, had refused milk from a syringe, a bottle, and a saucer for two days, according to Sadgorod Zoo. At night, the babies had a heating pad to stimulate their digestion. Still, nothing helped.
As Muska had recently raised a litter of foster kittens, she had milk to offer - so the zoo decided to try the unusual pairing. The hungry orphans reacted to her bodily warmth and the smell of milk, and soon began to nurse. The good-natured cat proceeded to feed the hedgehogs for more than a week and comfort them at night, Russia's Vesti reports.
The fragile youngsters are now eating on their own, although their feline guardian is still keeping an eye on proceedings.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-40720327
Tuesday 25 July 2017
Genuinely good art from MS Paint using only the mouse
Being able to draw using MS Paint is nothing special. Being able to draw in MS Paint while only using the mouse, however...
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-40715545
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-40715545
Robot Wars : Giant Edition
Watch the video watch the video watch the video.
... MegaBots (@MegaBotsInc), the East Bay startup that wants to launch a new form of high-octane entertainment centered on the spectacle of giant robot battles. The story stands out not just for the technical details of MegaBots’ builds — its long-anticipated Mk. III is a marvel of engineering that cost a cool $2.5 million to develop — but for its insight into how the maker pros behind the company have woven business acumen together with mechanical wizardry to position the venture as a commercially viable entertainment.
Now is a pivotal moment for MegaBots. Its Mk. III debuted at Maker Faire Bay Area earlier this year, where it flexed its power by beating up a Prius and staging an elaborate marriage proposal, but the battle with Kuratas — and the struggle to build an audience for giant robot shows — loom large on the horizon.
http://makezine.com/2017/07/25/maker-pro-news-business-plan-giant-fighting-robots-makers-workforce/
... MegaBots (@MegaBotsInc), the East Bay startup that wants to launch a new form of high-octane entertainment centered on the spectacle of giant robot battles. The story stands out not just for the technical details of MegaBots’ builds — its long-anticipated Mk. III is a marvel of engineering that cost a cool $2.5 million to develop — but for its insight into how the maker pros behind the company have woven business acumen together with mechanical wizardry to position the venture as a commercially viable entertainment.
Now is a pivotal moment for MegaBots. Its Mk. III debuted at Maker Faire Bay Area earlier this year, where it flexed its power by beating up a Prius and staging an elaborate marriage proposal, but the battle with Kuratas — and the struggle to build an audience for giant robot shows — loom large on the horizon.
http://makezine.com/2017/07/25/maker-pro-news-business-plan-giant-fighting-robots-makers-workforce/
Monday 24 July 2017
The end of Microsoft Paint ???
Not cool, Microsoft, not cool.
Microsoft's graphics program Paint has been included in a list of Windows 10 features that will be either removed or no longer developed. Paint has been part of the Windows operating system since its release in 1985 and is known for its simplicity and basic artistic results. Paint's successor, Paint 3D, will still be available.
Microsoft says that features on the list will be either removed from Windows 10 or "not in active development and might be removed in future releases".
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-40705466
Microsoft's graphics program Paint has been included in a list of Windows 10 features that will be either removed or no longer developed. Paint has been part of the Windows operating system since its release in 1985 and is known for its simplicity and basic artistic results. Paint's successor, Paint 3D, will still be available.
Microsoft says that features on the list will be either removed from Windows 10 or "not in active development and might be removed in future releases".
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-40705466
Count the snakes. It's harder than you think
D'awwwwww !
The separate heads were making decisions independently, and in movement they were not coordinated. If one of the heads decided to move to the right, then the animal would kind of wander off to the right, and then the other head might make a decision to move some other direction. They’re sending signals down to the muscles to do one thing or another thing simultaneously. This is why they usually don’t survive in the wild, because they’re uncoordinated, and they’re easy prey for predators like birds.
http://gizmodo.com/is-a-two-headed-snake-one-snake-or-two-snakes-1792623473
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7RdB0qM3qk
The separate heads were making decisions independently, and in movement they were not coordinated. If one of the heads decided to move to the right, then the animal would kind of wander off to the right, and then the other head might make a decision to move some other direction. They’re sending signals down to the muscles to do one thing or another thing simultaneously. This is why they usually don’t survive in the wild, because they’re uncoordinated, and they’re easy prey for predators like birds.
http://gizmodo.com/is-a-two-headed-snake-one-snake-or-two-snakes-1792623473
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7RdB0qM3qk
Astronomy simulations in VR
Immerse yourself in a simulation, because, why not ?
Paper here : https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.06954
In this paper, we first describe how to create 360◦ videos from astrophysical simulations, then present what we believe is the first such video shared online, which shows the distribution of material expelled by Wolf-Rayet stars in the Galactic centre, and finally discuss potential scientific applications of 360◦ videos.
Cuadra et al. (2008, 2015) constructed numerical simulations of the 30 Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars and their winds orbiting Sgr A∗ within the central parsec of our galaxy. Starting from the stellar locations 1100 yr ago, the WRs orbit Sgr A∗ while ejecting their stellar wind material. The central parsec quickly fills up with an ambient medium, into which the newly ejected wind material plows, causing wind-blown bubbles from the slow-moving stars and bow shocks around the fast-moving WRs. The intent was to study the time-dependent accretion history of material onto Sgr A∗ (the WR winds are the dominant mass-injection source in the region)...
We created a 360◦ video from an updated hydrodynamic simulation of these 30 WR stars and their winds by rendering column density from the position of the centre of the simulation, i.e. at the location of Sgr A.
I meant to try this in FRELLED, but I'm not sure if it will work. There's a hard limit in Blender of 1024 image textures, and also the the object visibility depends on viewing angle, which might screw things up. It would be trivial to do 360 particle videos, but I don't have any simulations that would benefit from this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWiBIol7gzQ&feature=youtu.be
Paper here : https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.06954
In this paper, we first describe how to create 360◦ videos from astrophysical simulations, then present what we believe is the first such video shared online, which shows the distribution of material expelled by Wolf-Rayet stars in the Galactic centre, and finally discuss potential scientific applications of 360◦ videos.
Cuadra et al. (2008, 2015) constructed numerical simulations of the 30 Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars and their winds orbiting Sgr A∗ within the central parsec of our galaxy. Starting from the stellar locations 1100 yr ago, the WRs orbit Sgr A∗ while ejecting their stellar wind material. The central parsec quickly fills up with an ambient medium, into which the newly ejected wind material plows, causing wind-blown bubbles from the slow-moving stars and bow shocks around the fast-moving WRs. The intent was to study the time-dependent accretion history of material onto Sgr A∗ (the WR winds are the dominant mass-injection source in the region)...
We created a 360◦ video from an updated hydrodynamic simulation of these 30 WR stars and their winds by rendering column density from the position of the centre of the simulation, i.e. at the location of Sgr A.
I meant to try this in FRELLED, but I'm not sure if it will work. There's a hard limit in Blender of 1024 image textures, and also the the object visibility depends on viewing angle, which might screw things up. It would be trivial to do 360 particle videos, but I don't have any simulations that would benefit from this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWiBIol7gzQ&feature=youtu.be
Saving rhinos with IVF
A UK zoo is taking part in a radical plan to save the world's last three northern white rhinos from extinction. At Longleat safari park, scientists have collected eggs from southern white rhinos - a closely related sub species - to use for IVF. The eggs will help researchers to develop the technology to help the remaining northern whites to reproduce.
A back-up plan is to mix eggs from the southern white rhinos with sperm from northern whites to create a hybrid. It means that if the bid to produce a pure northern white rhino fails, at least some of the critically endangered animal's genes will live on. Darren Beasley, head of animal operations at Longleat, added: "Effectively the female rhinos would act as IVF mothers, with embryos partly derived from northern white male sperm.
Experimental fertility technology may be the last hope for northern white rhinos. The animals were once found across central Africa, but illegal poaching, fuelled by the demand for rhino horn, wiped out the wild population. Today, there are just three of the animals left: a male, who is over 40, and two younger females. The former zoo animals, which are inter-related, are kept under tight security at Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. However, a combination of age and fertility problems means that none is able to breed.
The rhinos have not mated naturally with the zoo's male, which is why they were put forward to take part in the study. Extracting the eggs required millimetre precision. Prof Hildebrand said: "We have a two-tonne animal, and the ovaries are more than two metres inside. We operate on an ovary that is lying next to a blood vessel and if we poke that with our needle, there is a very high risk that the animal dies. We have developed a very sophisticated technique to make sure we don't do any harm to the animals."
The eggs have now been rushed back to the Avantea clinic in Italy, a lab that specialises in assisted reproduction in animals, where they will be prepared for fertilisation.
The fertility scientists admit the chances of success may be slim - but they are optimistic that the technology could help. Prof Hildebrandt said: "The classical conservationists would not even call this a conservation approach, because it is so technical, so far beyond what you normally do. But we hope future generations will understand that this is the way to go. It is a technology that allows us to bring a species back form the brink of extinction that would normally be impossible - and that is our goal. We are extremely optimistic that we will achieve that."
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-40655273
A back-up plan is to mix eggs from the southern white rhinos with sperm from northern whites to create a hybrid. It means that if the bid to produce a pure northern white rhino fails, at least some of the critically endangered animal's genes will live on. Darren Beasley, head of animal operations at Longleat, added: "Effectively the female rhinos would act as IVF mothers, with embryos partly derived from northern white male sperm.
Experimental fertility technology may be the last hope for northern white rhinos. The animals were once found across central Africa, but illegal poaching, fuelled by the demand for rhino horn, wiped out the wild population. Today, there are just three of the animals left: a male, who is over 40, and two younger females. The former zoo animals, which are inter-related, are kept under tight security at Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. However, a combination of age and fertility problems means that none is able to breed.
The rhinos have not mated naturally with the zoo's male, which is why they were put forward to take part in the study. Extracting the eggs required millimetre precision. Prof Hildebrand said: "We have a two-tonne animal, and the ovaries are more than two metres inside. We operate on an ovary that is lying next to a blood vessel and if we poke that with our needle, there is a very high risk that the animal dies. We have developed a very sophisticated technique to make sure we don't do any harm to the animals."
The eggs have now been rushed back to the Avantea clinic in Italy, a lab that specialises in assisted reproduction in animals, where they will be prepared for fertilisation.
The fertility scientists admit the chances of success may be slim - but they are optimistic that the technology could help. Prof Hildebrandt said: "The classical conservationists would not even call this a conservation approach, because it is so technical, so far beyond what you normally do. But we hope future generations will understand that this is the way to go. It is a technology that allows us to bring a species back form the brink of extinction that would normally be impossible - and that is our goal. We are extremely optimistic that we will achieve that."
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-40655273
Amazingly the UK government has just made a plausible case for the "internet of things"
Wait, the government did something intelligent ? Will wonders never cease...
Consumers in the UK could save billions of pounds thanks to major changes in the way electricity is made, used and stored, the government has said. New rules will make it easier for people to generate their own power with solar panels, store it in batteries and sell it to the National Grid. If they work, consumers will save £17bn to £40bn by 2050, according to the government and energy regulator Ofgem.
The rules are due to come into effect over the next year. They will reduce costs for someone who allows their washing machine to be turned on by the internet to maximise use of cheap solar power on a sunny afternoon. And they will even support people who agree to have their freezers switched off for a few minutes to smooth demand at peak times. They'll also benefit a business that allows its air-conditioning to be turned down briefly to help balance a spell of peak energy demand on the National Grid.
Among the first to gain from the rule changes will be people with solar panels and battery storage. At the moment they are charged tariffs when they import electricity into their home or export it back to the grid.
The tiny energy savings of millions of people and firms will be pulled together into packages by traders, who will offer substantial chunks of energy saving to the National Grid at the click of a computer. So instead of predicting peak demand then building power stations to meet it, energy managers will be able to trade in Negawatts - negative electricity.
So finally a good case being made for the hitherto pointless, "internet of things" concept. However :
Some will urge a degree of caution amongst the enthusiasm: the more the energy industry embraces the digital age, the more vulnerable it will be to hacking. Recent reports suggest that Russian hackers may already have tried to compromise the system. Ofgem says the new rules will put measures in place to combat interference.
More information needed on that last point. Someone should design an automatic, self-ejecting plug so that after a single operation it's impossible to run a device without physically plugging it back in again.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40699986
Consumers in the UK could save billions of pounds thanks to major changes in the way electricity is made, used and stored, the government has said. New rules will make it easier for people to generate their own power with solar panels, store it in batteries and sell it to the National Grid. If they work, consumers will save £17bn to £40bn by 2050, according to the government and energy regulator Ofgem.
The rules are due to come into effect over the next year. They will reduce costs for someone who allows their washing machine to be turned on by the internet to maximise use of cheap solar power on a sunny afternoon. And they will even support people who agree to have their freezers switched off for a few minutes to smooth demand at peak times. They'll also benefit a business that allows its air-conditioning to be turned down briefly to help balance a spell of peak energy demand on the National Grid.
Among the first to gain from the rule changes will be people with solar panels and battery storage. At the moment they are charged tariffs when they import electricity into their home or export it back to the grid.
The tiny energy savings of millions of people and firms will be pulled together into packages by traders, who will offer substantial chunks of energy saving to the National Grid at the click of a computer. So instead of predicting peak demand then building power stations to meet it, energy managers will be able to trade in Negawatts - negative electricity.
So finally a good case being made for the hitherto pointless, "internet of things" concept. However :
Some will urge a degree of caution amongst the enthusiasm: the more the energy industry embraces the digital age, the more vulnerable it will be to hacking. Recent reports suggest that Russian hackers may already have tried to compromise the system. Ofgem says the new rules will put measures in place to combat interference.
More information needed on that last point. Someone should design an automatic, self-ejecting plug so that after a single operation it's impossible to run a device without physically plugging it back in again.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40699986
Floating wind farms
The world's first full-scale floating wind farm has started to take shape off the north-east coast of Scotland. The revolutionary technology will allow wind power to be harvested in waters too deep for the current conventional bottom-standing turbines. The Peterhead wind farm, known as Hywind, is a trial which will bring power to 20,000 homes.
So far, one giant turbine has already been moved into place, while four more wait in readiness in a Norwegian fjord. By the end of the month they'll all have been towed to 15 miles (25km) off Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, where they'll float upright like giant fishing floats. While the turbines are currently very expensive to make, Statoil believes that in the future it will be able to dramatically reduce costs in the same way that manufacturers already have for conventional offshore turbines. "I think eventually we will see floating wind farms compete without subsidy - but to do that we need to get building at scale," said Mr Delp.
The tower, including the blades, stretches to 175m (575ft), dwarfing Big Ben. Each tower weighs 11,500 tonnes. The box behind the blades - the nacelle - could hold two double-decker buses. Each blade is 75m - almost the wing span of an Airbus. The turbines can operate in water up to a kilometre deep.
The price of energy from bottom-standing offshore wind farms has plummeted 32% since 2012 - far faster that anyone predicted. The price is now four years ahead of the government's expected target, and another big price drop is expected, taking offshore wind to a much lower price than new nuclear power.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40699979
So far, one giant turbine has already been moved into place, while four more wait in readiness in a Norwegian fjord. By the end of the month they'll all have been towed to 15 miles (25km) off Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, where they'll float upright like giant fishing floats. While the turbines are currently very expensive to make, Statoil believes that in the future it will be able to dramatically reduce costs in the same way that manufacturers already have for conventional offshore turbines. "I think eventually we will see floating wind farms compete without subsidy - but to do that we need to get building at scale," said Mr Delp.
The tower, including the blades, stretches to 175m (575ft), dwarfing Big Ben. Each tower weighs 11,500 tonnes. The box behind the blades - the nacelle - could hold two double-decker buses. Each blade is 75m - almost the wing span of an Airbus. The turbines can operate in water up to a kilometre deep.
The price of energy from bottom-standing offshore wind farms has plummeted 32% since 2012 - far faster that anyone predicted. The price is now four years ahead of the government's expected target, and another big price drop is expected, taking offshore wind to a much lower price than new nuclear power.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40699979
Sunday 23 July 2017
Psychology has more intelligence measurements than just IQ
Certainly worth reading.
If you think about the last time that you used the word “intelligent” to describe someone, you probably meant to say that the person knows a great deal of information and makes well-reasoned decisions. This everyday use of the term intelligence is somewhat at odds with how intelligence is actually measured. For the purpose of this paper, we are operationalizing intelligence as standardized assessments of intelligence that yield IQ scores.
Consider, for example, the test structure for the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-IV). It includes vocabulary questions, visuospatial puzzles to solve, digits to recall in order both forward and backward, and a visual search for symbols (Wechsler, 1939). These subtests measure important components of intelligence, but individually or collectively, they do not capture the everyday meaning of intelligence, which includes making well-reasoned decisions, supporting conclusions with evidence, thinking in an unbiased manner, avoiding common well-documented biases in thinking such as not considering regression to the mean, weighting evidence that conforms to an existing belief more heavily than evidence that does not, and being misled by the way information is framed.
In one study, Stanovich and West (2008) tested the hypothesis that more intelligent people would be more likely to avoid “my-side bias” (the preference for conclusions and evidence that supports their world view) and more likely to prefer information that provided a balanced perspective on a controversial issue than less intelligent people. Contrary to expectations, they found that IQ measures did not predict thinking on these two types of reasoning tasks. More intelligent people were not more likely to avoid common cognitive biases or prefer balanced arguments than less intelligent people. Thus, intelligence does not appear to predict whether a person will use good reasoning or exercise good judgement.
The terms “critical thinking” and “wisdom” are labels given for the type of thinking that encompasses the skills that characterize good thinking. Grossmann, Na, Varnum, Kitayama, and Nisbett... cite many large scale
studies that have failed to find a relationship between IQ and well-being and articulate the belief that this failure was due to the fact that “standardized intelligence tests do not do a good job of capturing people’s ability to think about social relations or real-world decision-making”... they found that wise
reasoning predicted well-being, a marginally predicted longevity (assessed with death records for the older participants five years later), and better social relations; whereas, cognitive ability as measured with intelligence tests did not.
In this paper, we use the term “critical thinking” as our label for good or clear thinking. Critical thinking involves thinking rationally in a goal-oriented fashion... It is a collection of skills and strategies that a thinker can use when the situation calls for them. It is also a disposition towards thinking careful and thoughtfully. Sometimes critical thinking can be confused with pessimism and cynicism, but the word “critical” is to be used in a more positive way. To be a critical thinker means that you are an amiable skeptic who is willing to invest effort into your thinking process and that you are a flexible thinker.
I dunno, I think I prefer "wisdom". Wisdom is knowing which methods to use in order to form the correct conclusion; knowing when to apply the appropriate methods of critical thinking. Being critical and skeptical is important, but it's also open to abuse without wisdom. Interjection by Plato (Republic, 539b-d) :
I don’t suppose that it has escaped your notice that, when young people get their first taste of arguments, they misuse it by treating it as a kind of game of contradiction. They imitate those who’ve refuted them by refuting others themselves, and, like puppies, they enjoy dragging and tearing those around them with their arguments. Then, when they’ve refuted many and been refuted by them in turn, they forcefully and quickly fall into disbelieving what they believed before. And, as a result, they themselves and the whole of philosophy are discredited in the eyes of others. But an older person won’t want to take part in such madness. He’ll imitate someone who is willing to engage in discussion in order to look for the truth, rather than someone who plays at contradiction for sport.
And now to resume the current paper :
We examined the independent and combined effects of intelligence as assessed with IQ scores and critical thinking as assessed with scores on a popular critical thinking assessment (HCTA). We expected to replicate earlier research showing that IQ can modestly predict some life events, but also
expected to find that critical thinking is a better predictor of these events than IQ scores and that it would add significantly to predictive power when used in conjunction with IQ scores.
They do this by recruiting volunteers and asking them to complete forms designed to measure (separately) intelligence and critical thinking skills.
Our results support both of these hypotheses—critical thinking ability had a greater association with real life decisions, and it added significantly to explained variance, beyond what was accounted for by intelligence alone. These results leave us cautiously optimistic about the assessment of critical thinking ability and the validity of critical thinking scores to predict what people actually do (or say they do) in real life.
Although the methodology of this study (a correlational design) does not allow us to make casual statements (e.g., improving our critical thinking skills will prevent us from making bad decisions) or rule out alternative explanations of these results (e.g., critical thinkers are more selective about reporting certain life outcomes), we are optimistic that improving critical thinking and intelligence will have a positive impact on our everyday lives... Regardless of the cause for the rise in IQ scores, researchers agree that positive outcomes are associated with it.
There is considerable agreement that critical thinking skills can be enhanced, especially with specific instructional strategies designed for that purpose. The results of Huber and Kunkel’s metaanalysis indicated that both critical thinking skills and the disposition to use those skills improves substantially over a normal college experience. This is consistent with a growing body of literature from all parts of the world and at all grade-levels that indicates critical thinking skills can be enhanced. Interestingly, no specific program or courses in the meta-analysis were identified as having increased critical thinking skills. This is perhaps not surprising given that good thinkers need to employ an inventory of critical thinking skills that cut across disciplines, and also need disciplinary knowledge to use them effectively.
We are making a strong plea for more instruction in and attention to critical thinking skills. We can imagine a world where many more people think critically. Around the world, people are called upon to vote on a wide range of critical issues. The irrational (uncritical) voter is a threat to all of us, as are irrational politicians, business executives, and scientists. We believe that we can create a better future by enhancing critical thinking skills of citizens around the world. This optimism is tempered with the reality that so far, we only have data showing that individuals make fewer negative decisions in their personal lives when they are better thinkers, and can only imagine the impact of a world-wide increase in better thinking. We have nothing to lose by trying.
I dunno, years of arguing with pseudoscientists (as well as those who merely possess a few pseudoscientific beliefs) has convinced me that Plato had a point : critical thinking is not the same as wisdom. Undoubtedly there's a correlation, but being able to be critical does not mean that one actually is critical, or is genuinely interested in an unbiased search for the truth. Can you teach this sort of wisdom ? Buggered if I know. Perhaps curiosity is a better approach.
https://news.yale.edu/2017/01/26/antidote-partisanship-science-curiosity-seems-work
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1871187116300384
If you think about the last time that you used the word “intelligent” to describe someone, you probably meant to say that the person knows a great deal of information and makes well-reasoned decisions. This everyday use of the term intelligence is somewhat at odds with how intelligence is actually measured. For the purpose of this paper, we are operationalizing intelligence as standardized assessments of intelligence that yield IQ scores.
Consider, for example, the test structure for the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-IV). It includes vocabulary questions, visuospatial puzzles to solve, digits to recall in order both forward and backward, and a visual search for symbols (Wechsler, 1939). These subtests measure important components of intelligence, but individually or collectively, they do not capture the everyday meaning of intelligence, which includes making well-reasoned decisions, supporting conclusions with evidence, thinking in an unbiased manner, avoiding common well-documented biases in thinking such as not considering regression to the mean, weighting evidence that conforms to an existing belief more heavily than evidence that does not, and being misled by the way information is framed.
In one study, Stanovich and West (2008) tested the hypothesis that more intelligent people would be more likely to avoid “my-side bias” (the preference for conclusions and evidence that supports their world view) and more likely to prefer information that provided a balanced perspective on a controversial issue than less intelligent people. Contrary to expectations, they found that IQ measures did not predict thinking on these two types of reasoning tasks. More intelligent people were not more likely to avoid common cognitive biases or prefer balanced arguments than less intelligent people. Thus, intelligence does not appear to predict whether a person will use good reasoning or exercise good judgement.
The terms “critical thinking” and “wisdom” are labels given for the type of thinking that encompasses the skills that characterize good thinking. Grossmann, Na, Varnum, Kitayama, and Nisbett... cite many large scale
studies that have failed to find a relationship between IQ and well-being and articulate the belief that this failure was due to the fact that “standardized intelligence tests do not do a good job of capturing people’s ability to think about social relations or real-world decision-making”... they found that wise
reasoning predicted well-being, a marginally predicted longevity (assessed with death records for the older participants five years later), and better social relations; whereas, cognitive ability as measured with intelligence tests did not.
In this paper, we use the term “critical thinking” as our label for good or clear thinking. Critical thinking involves thinking rationally in a goal-oriented fashion... It is a collection of skills and strategies that a thinker can use when the situation calls for them. It is also a disposition towards thinking careful and thoughtfully. Sometimes critical thinking can be confused with pessimism and cynicism, but the word “critical” is to be used in a more positive way. To be a critical thinker means that you are an amiable skeptic who is willing to invest effort into your thinking process and that you are a flexible thinker.
I dunno, I think I prefer "wisdom". Wisdom is knowing which methods to use in order to form the correct conclusion; knowing when to apply the appropriate methods of critical thinking. Being critical and skeptical is important, but it's also open to abuse without wisdom. Interjection by Plato (Republic, 539b-d) :
I don’t suppose that it has escaped your notice that, when young people get their first taste of arguments, they misuse it by treating it as a kind of game of contradiction. They imitate those who’ve refuted them by refuting others themselves, and, like puppies, they enjoy dragging and tearing those around them with their arguments. Then, when they’ve refuted many and been refuted by them in turn, they forcefully and quickly fall into disbelieving what they believed before. And, as a result, they themselves and the whole of philosophy are discredited in the eyes of others. But an older person won’t want to take part in such madness. He’ll imitate someone who is willing to engage in discussion in order to look for the truth, rather than someone who plays at contradiction for sport.
And now to resume the current paper :
We examined the independent and combined effects of intelligence as assessed with IQ scores and critical thinking as assessed with scores on a popular critical thinking assessment (HCTA). We expected to replicate earlier research showing that IQ can modestly predict some life events, but also
expected to find that critical thinking is a better predictor of these events than IQ scores and that it would add significantly to predictive power when used in conjunction with IQ scores.
They do this by recruiting volunteers and asking them to complete forms designed to measure (separately) intelligence and critical thinking skills.
Our results support both of these hypotheses—critical thinking ability had a greater association with real life decisions, and it added significantly to explained variance, beyond what was accounted for by intelligence alone. These results leave us cautiously optimistic about the assessment of critical thinking ability and the validity of critical thinking scores to predict what people actually do (or say they do) in real life.
Although the methodology of this study (a correlational design) does not allow us to make casual statements (e.g., improving our critical thinking skills will prevent us from making bad decisions) or rule out alternative explanations of these results (e.g., critical thinkers are more selective about reporting certain life outcomes), we are optimistic that improving critical thinking and intelligence will have a positive impact on our everyday lives... Regardless of the cause for the rise in IQ scores, researchers agree that positive outcomes are associated with it.
There is considerable agreement that critical thinking skills can be enhanced, especially with specific instructional strategies designed for that purpose. The results of Huber and Kunkel’s metaanalysis indicated that both critical thinking skills and the disposition to use those skills improves substantially over a normal college experience. This is consistent with a growing body of literature from all parts of the world and at all grade-levels that indicates critical thinking skills can be enhanced. Interestingly, no specific program or courses in the meta-analysis were identified as having increased critical thinking skills. This is perhaps not surprising given that good thinkers need to employ an inventory of critical thinking skills that cut across disciplines, and also need disciplinary knowledge to use them effectively.
We are making a strong plea for more instruction in and attention to critical thinking skills. We can imagine a world where many more people think critically. Around the world, people are called upon to vote on a wide range of critical issues. The irrational (uncritical) voter is a threat to all of us, as are irrational politicians, business executives, and scientists. We believe that we can create a better future by enhancing critical thinking skills of citizens around the world. This optimism is tempered with the reality that so far, we only have data showing that individuals make fewer negative decisions in their personal lives when they are better thinkers, and can only imagine the impact of a world-wide increase in better thinking. We have nothing to lose by trying.
I dunno, years of arguing with pseudoscientists (as well as those who merely possess a few pseudoscientific beliefs) has convinced me that Plato had a point : critical thinking is not the same as wisdom. Undoubtedly there's a correlation, but being able to be critical does not mean that one actually is critical, or is genuinely interested in an unbiased search for the truth. Can you teach this sort of wisdom ? Buggered if I know. Perhaps curiosity is a better approach.
https://news.yale.edu/2017/01/26/antidote-partisanship-science-curiosity-seems-work
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1871187116300384
Elephant seals have names
Warning : the sounds are disappointingly inoffensive.
Male elephant seals recognise the rhythm of one another's voices, researchers say.
Or in other words, they have names for each other, as do dolphins.
http://www.bbc.com/news/av/science-environment-40688601/the-rather-rude-sounds-of-an-elephant-seal
Male elephant seals recognise the rhythm of one another's voices, researchers say.
Or in other words, they have names for each other, as do dolphins.
http://www.bbc.com/news/av/science-environment-40688601/the-rather-rude-sounds-of-an-elephant-seal
Saturday 22 July 2017
Plato understood the toleration paradox well before Popper
I disagree on what constitutes, "moderate" [Plato had some pretty extreme ideas about this], but I agree with the principle.
Friday 21 July 2017
We need a clean slate, literally - if nothing else we can hit people with it
You couldn't make this stuff up if you tried.
Mr Spicer stepped down because he was unhappy with President Donald Drumpf's appointment of a new communications director, according to reports. Mr Spicer's press briefings were a cable news hit, but he withdrew from camera in recent weeks. He told US media that the White House "could benefit from a clean slate".
Yeah, literally replace everyone in that building with a clean piece of actual slate and the state of world affairs would significantly improve overnight.
Spicer's low points :
inflating crowd sizes at Drumpf inauguration at first briefing
his appearance, particularly his suits, reportedly criticised by Drumpf
saying Hitler never used chemical weapons and referring to Holocaust "centres"
butt of text message joke by adviser Steve Bannon about his weight
defending Drumpf "covfefe" tweet by saying it had hidden meaning
frozen out of meeting with the Pope in Rome, despite being devout Catholic
not invited to Paris for Drumpf visit
His proclivity for gaffes and garbling of his words, as well as making debatable assertions, soon made Mr Spicer a household name. Mr Spicer was roundly mocked after he reportedly hid by a hedgerow on the White House grounds to avoid reporters on the night Mr Drumpf fired the FBI director in May.
But wait, who's this I see coming along to replace him ?
Combative Wall Street financier Anthony Scaramucci has been picked for the role that Mr Spicer partially filled. The New York Times reports that 45-year-old Mr Spicer "vehemently" disagreed with the appointment of Mr Scaramucci, which he believed to be a "major mistake".
In an August 2015 interview with Fox Business, he dismissed Mr Drumpf as a "hack" and "an inherited money dude" with "a big mouth". Mr Scaramucci also apologised and said he had been "unexperienced" as he explained his previous criticism of the president.
"I love the president and it's an honour to be here," Mr Scaramucci said, adding: "He is genuinely a wonderful human being." He also said: "The president has really good karma." Mr Scaramucci, who has no previous experience in communications roles, paid tribute to Mr Spicer as "a true American patriot" and "incredibly gracious".
Truly we are in a post-satire world.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40687521
Mr Spicer stepped down because he was unhappy with President Donald Drumpf's appointment of a new communications director, according to reports. Mr Spicer's press briefings were a cable news hit, but he withdrew from camera in recent weeks. He told US media that the White House "could benefit from a clean slate".
Yeah, literally replace everyone in that building with a clean piece of actual slate and the state of world affairs would significantly improve overnight.
Spicer's low points :
inflating crowd sizes at Drumpf inauguration at first briefing
his appearance, particularly his suits, reportedly criticised by Drumpf
saying Hitler never used chemical weapons and referring to Holocaust "centres"
butt of text message joke by adviser Steve Bannon about his weight
defending Drumpf "covfefe" tweet by saying it had hidden meaning
frozen out of meeting with the Pope in Rome, despite being devout Catholic
not invited to Paris for Drumpf visit
His proclivity for gaffes and garbling of his words, as well as making debatable assertions, soon made Mr Spicer a household name. Mr Spicer was roundly mocked after he reportedly hid by a hedgerow on the White House grounds to avoid reporters on the night Mr Drumpf fired the FBI director in May.
But wait, who's this I see coming along to replace him ?
Combative Wall Street financier Anthony Scaramucci has been picked for the role that Mr Spicer partially filled. The New York Times reports that 45-year-old Mr Spicer "vehemently" disagreed with the appointment of Mr Scaramucci, which he believed to be a "major mistake".
In an August 2015 interview with Fox Business, he dismissed Mr Drumpf as a "hack" and "an inherited money dude" with "a big mouth". Mr Scaramucci also apologised and said he had been "unexperienced" as he explained his previous criticism of the president.
"I love the president and it's an honour to be here," Mr Scaramucci said, adding: "He is genuinely a wonderful human being." He also said: "The president has really good karma." Mr Scaramucci, who has no previous experience in communications roles, paid tribute to Mr Spicer as "a true American patriot" and "incredibly gracious".
Truly we are in a post-satire world.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40687521
Stargate Origins
This could work. It would probably have to be limited to a single series, but it could work.
The 10-episode series “Stargate Origins” will tell the story of Catherine Langford, a character who occasionally appeared in previous “Stargate” TV shows. The show will be available via MGM’s new streaming service, titled Stargate Command, which will be available this fall. Mark Ilvedson and Justin Michael Terry will write “Stargate Origins,” which will revolve around Langford, daughter of archaeologist Paul Langford, who discovered the ancient, round Stargate. In the show, Catherine will go on an adventure in order to save the Earth from terrifying darkness. The online series will be directed by Mercedes Bryce Morgan.
http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/stargate-revival-origins-new-digital-show-1202501988/
The 10-episode series “Stargate Origins” will tell the story of Catherine Langford, a character who occasionally appeared in previous “Stargate” TV shows. The show will be available via MGM’s new streaming service, titled Stargate Command, which will be available this fall. Mark Ilvedson and Justin Michael Terry will write “Stargate Origins,” which will revolve around Langford, daughter of archaeologist Paul Langford, who discovered the ancient, round Stargate. In the show, Catherine will go on an adventure in order to save the Earth from terrifying darkness. The online series will be directed by Mercedes Bryce Morgan.
http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/stargate-revival-origins-new-digital-show-1202501988/
Thursday 20 July 2017
This holiday should be a learning experience for May, but it won't be
Prime Minister Theresa May is to take a three-week walking holiday in the Alps with husband Philip, Number 10 says. Mrs May is to spend five days in northern Italy next week, before attending the commemoration of the centenary of the battle of Passchendaele in Belgium.
She will then resume her holiday with two weeks in Switzerland. It is the second consecutive year that the couple have taken a walking holiday in the country. She joked on Wednesday that fellow Conservatives may be relieved that she is not returning to Wales, where she made the decision to call a snap election while walking in Snowdonia with husband Philip at Easter.
Mrs May has previously said that she loves holidaying in Switzerland because she can get some "peace and quiet".
Well, this demonstrates idiocy for two reasons. First, there aren't many fields of wheat in Switzerland, making it a poor choice of holiday destination. Second, for the love of all things holy please start paying attention to the demonstrable fact that the existence of the Schengen Area has not led to the total collapse of Europe. That free movement you're so keen on ending... FFS, WHY ?!?!
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-40667038
She will then resume her holiday with two weeks in Switzerland. It is the second consecutive year that the couple have taken a walking holiday in the country. She joked on Wednesday that fellow Conservatives may be relieved that she is not returning to Wales, where she made the decision to call a snap election while walking in Snowdonia with husband Philip at Easter.
Mrs May has previously said that she loves holidaying in Switzerland because she can get some "peace and quiet".
Well, this demonstrates idiocy for two reasons. First, there aren't many fields of wheat in Switzerland, making it a poor choice of holiday destination. Second, for the love of all things holy please start paying attention to the demonstrable fact that the existence of the Schengen Area has not led to the total collapse of Europe. That free movement you're so keen on ending... FFS, WHY ?!?!
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-40667038
Wednesday 19 July 2017
The weird world of the hammerhead worm
Nature continues being weird and icky.
The worms' mouths are not located on their oddly shaped heads. Instead, they're right in the middle of their bodies, on their undersides, said Peter Ducey, a biologist at The State University of New York, Cortland, who researches these creatures. When the worms attack their prey, they first excrete glue-like mucus to adhere their soon-to-be dinner to their bodies. They then excrete digestive enzymes, reducing their prey to goo, which the flatworm can then suck up with its mouth (which also doubles as its anus).
The heads are dotted with chemoreceptors (a sense organ) and organs that scientists call eyes, though it's not really clear how much light those "eyes" can detect, Ducey said. No one knows for sure why the worms' heads are so weird-looking, but it could have to do with the positioning of these sensory organs, he said.
"If you have a big, broad head and you have chemical receptors on both sides of it, you can compare the right side and the left side," Ducey said. If one side detects more earthworm scent, he said, it could signal the worm to crawl in that direction.
https://www.livescience.com/59838-hammerhead-worm-with-mustache-captured-video.html
The worms' mouths are not located on their oddly shaped heads. Instead, they're right in the middle of their bodies, on their undersides, said Peter Ducey, a biologist at The State University of New York, Cortland, who researches these creatures. When the worms attack their prey, they first excrete glue-like mucus to adhere their soon-to-be dinner to their bodies. They then excrete digestive enzymes, reducing their prey to goo, which the flatworm can then suck up with its mouth (which also doubles as its anus).
The heads are dotted with chemoreceptors (a sense organ) and organs that scientists call eyes, though it's not really clear how much light those "eyes" can detect, Ducey said. No one knows for sure why the worms' heads are so weird-looking, but it could have to do with the positioning of these sensory organs, he said.
"If you have a big, broad head and you have chemical receptors on both sides of it, you can compare the right side and the left side," Ducey said. If one side detects more earthworm scent, he said, it could signal the worm to crawl in that direction.
https://www.livescience.com/59838-hammerhead-worm-with-mustache-captured-video.html
We literally can't do this
Can we please stop this utter nonsense now ? Please ? A former EU negotiator is quite cross :
"It's insanely complex. It's just insane. I consider myself something of an expert in some aspects of the EU but every time I talk to anybody else who works in the institutions about Brexit, new areas of insane complexity and potentially awful consequences for the UK come up."
"Somebody mentioned to me the other day patents. I had never even thought of patents. But when you start digging down a bit and think about issues like intellectual property rights and so on, these are little areas but these all need to be addressed in 20 months. If they are not addressed in 20 months the consequences for individuals and businesses in the UK will be awful. I've got a long list: medicine approvals, aviation safety, accreditation for service operations for planes, and so many more. Countless agencies governed by the ECJ. The UK may need to put in place entire new agencies for these things within 20 months. You can imagine the consequences of this not being done.
"It gets more complex every day than I thought it would be."
And what about a free trade deal? Brexit Secretary David Davis and others have insisted that they will be able to negotiate both the divorce agreement and a long-term UK-EU trade relationship within the two year Article 50 period.
"The idea that you can have a free trade deal or future relationship sorted within the two years is just absolutely absurd. There is no possibility of that. There could be a divorce agreement and maybe a transition deal if it was very simple. The UK could agree to stay in the EEA for five years, for example. But the UK would have to agree to the package. There just isn't time."
He adds: "They are dealing with Northern Ireland this week. They are dealing with citizens rights this week and the financial settlement too. I can't think that there is going to be a solution to any of them coming this week — and that's another month gone until the next round. Also, don't forget that the agreement can't be reached in March 2019. It has to be reached in October 2018 at the very latest as it will have to be ratified by EU parliaments as well. The idea that the entire deal will be done within the two years I find impossible to believe. Even with the best will in the world, it cannot be done."
http://www.businessinsider.fr/uk/former-eu-negotiator-mays-government-has-handled-brexit-in-the-absolute-worst-way-2017-7/
"It's insanely complex. It's just insane. I consider myself something of an expert in some aspects of the EU but every time I talk to anybody else who works in the institutions about Brexit, new areas of insane complexity and potentially awful consequences for the UK come up."
"Somebody mentioned to me the other day patents. I had never even thought of patents. But when you start digging down a bit and think about issues like intellectual property rights and so on, these are little areas but these all need to be addressed in 20 months. If they are not addressed in 20 months the consequences for individuals and businesses in the UK will be awful. I've got a long list: medicine approvals, aviation safety, accreditation for service operations for planes, and so many more. Countless agencies governed by the ECJ. The UK may need to put in place entire new agencies for these things within 20 months. You can imagine the consequences of this not being done.
"It gets more complex every day than I thought it would be."
And what about a free trade deal? Brexit Secretary David Davis and others have insisted that they will be able to negotiate both the divorce agreement and a long-term UK-EU trade relationship within the two year Article 50 period.
"The idea that you can have a free trade deal or future relationship sorted within the two years is just absolutely absurd. There is no possibility of that. There could be a divorce agreement and maybe a transition deal if it was very simple. The UK could agree to stay in the EEA for five years, for example. But the UK would have to agree to the package. There just isn't time."
He adds: "They are dealing with Northern Ireland this week. They are dealing with citizens rights this week and the financial settlement too. I can't think that there is going to be a solution to any of them coming this week — and that's another month gone until the next round. Also, don't forget that the agreement can't be reached in March 2019. It has to be reached in October 2018 at the very latest as it will have to be ratified by EU parliaments as well. The idea that the entire deal will be done within the two years I find impossible to believe. Even with the best will in the world, it cannot be done."
http://www.businessinsider.fr/uk/former-eu-negotiator-mays-government-has-handled-brexit-in-the-absolute-worst-way-2017-7/
Tuesday 18 July 2017
Amazingly, insulting prospective employees doesn't work
Yes, it's definitely a good idea to pre-emptively insult your potential future employees and offer a mediocre salary with the added incentive of having to very hard work to earn it. Good job team !
Slow clap.
[Might it be that rather than an entire generation being at fault, the would-be employer is just an arse ?]
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-40640649
Monday 17 July 2017
Game of Thrones : tapestry edition
So good I'll even reshare a Daily Mail link. Does not contain any spoilers from last night's episode as far as I'm aware (I haven't watched it yet, so no spoilers here either please !!!).
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4700724/Game-Thrones-scenes-portrayed-77-metre-long-tapestry.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4700724/Game-Thrones-scenes-portrayed-77-metre-long-tapestry.html
Millenials are loyal to the point of taking a financial hit
It turns out, millennials are just as committed as their elders were at the same age, if not more so. What’s more, they’re not being rewarded for that loyalty. Members of the preceding generation, known as Generation X, were found to be twice as likely to keep switching employers at the same age – a good thing for them, financially speaking. Job-hopping tends to come with a pay rise of about 15% with each move, as well as the opportunity for workers to learn new skills and determine which kind employers are a good fit for them. Meanwhile, pay rises for those who stay with one company for the long term have dwindled to almost nothing, according to the Resolution Foundation report.
In April, the Pew Research Center, a non-partisan “fact tank” based in Washington, DC, published similar findings, drawn from US Department of Labor data. The report found that American workers aged 18 to 35 were just as likely to stick with their employers as their older counterparts in Generation X were when they were young adults. And among those with college degrees, millennials were found to have longer track records with their employers than Generation X workers did when they were the same age.
...
The fact that young people are job-hopping less, she adds, is “a big determinant of why, for the first time in living memory, young people are earning no more now than previous generations were at the same age 15 years before.”
Stereotypes about millennials suggest they’re not interested in old-fashioned markers of success. But when it comes to the fundamental desire for these basic anchors – a home, retirement savings, a decent career, a family – “there’s strikingly little difference between the generations,” Gardiner says.
Seven in 10 millennials living in mature economies, according to the 2017 Deloitte Millennial Survey, would prefer to be in full-time employment, rather than freelance work, and the reasons most often given for this preference are “job security” and a “fixed income.”
“Perspectives among young people have changed since the 1970s,” Deal says; “the world has changed.” But the lament that young people lack commitment is a “typical stereotype of young people. We saw the same stereotyping of Gen Xers when they were new to the workforce.”
http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20170713-why-the-millennial-stereotype-is-wrong
In April, the Pew Research Center, a non-partisan “fact tank” based in Washington, DC, published similar findings, drawn from US Department of Labor data. The report found that American workers aged 18 to 35 were just as likely to stick with their employers as their older counterparts in Generation X were when they were young adults. And among those with college degrees, millennials were found to have longer track records with their employers than Generation X workers did when they were the same age.
...
The fact that young people are job-hopping less, she adds, is “a big determinant of why, for the first time in living memory, young people are earning no more now than previous generations were at the same age 15 years before.”
Stereotypes about millennials suggest they’re not interested in old-fashioned markers of success. But when it comes to the fundamental desire for these basic anchors – a home, retirement savings, a decent career, a family – “there’s strikingly little difference between the generations,” Gardiner says.
Seven in 10 millennials living in mature economies, according to the 2017 Deloitte Millennial Survey, would prefer to be in full-time employment, rather than freelance work, and the reasons most often given for this preference are “job security” and a “fixed income.”
“Perspectives among young people have changed since the 1970s,” Deal says; “the world has changed.” But the lament that young people lack commitment is a “typical stereotype of young people. We saw the same stereotyping of Gen Xers when they were new to the workforce.”
http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20170713-why-the-millennial-stereotype-is-wrong
Sunday 16 July 2017
All the Doctors
I'm going to miss the Moffat-Capaldi era. No-one's ever going to be able to compete with Peter Capaldi in a long black coat, wearing sunglasses, sitting on a tank in a medieval castle playing an electric guitar. Can't be done, I tell ya.
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-40585673
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-40585673
Saturday 15 July 2017
Smaller brains can be an advantage for intelligence
"Ravens are avian dinosaurs that shared an ancestor with mammals around 320 million years ago," the Science paper notes.
The fact that corvids have brains the size of a walnut might not be a disadvantage. A study published last year revealed that though their brains are much smaller than some apes, like the capuchin monkey, the brains of corvids and large parrots have large numbers of neurons in some parts of their brains, at high density. Kabadayi said that their connection speeds might be even faster than those of mammals due to these neurons' close proximity to one another.
Perhaps the idea of problem-solving intelligence in velociraptors [no Google, I did not mean "velocipedes", get a better bloody dictionary already !] is not so outlandish after all.
In this study, researchers from Lund University in Sweden trained ravens to use a simple machine where they dropped a rock in a tube to earn a food reward. Later, they were put in a room with the puzzle box (but no rock), which was then removed. An hour later, the birds were presented with a row of objects: the rock, and several distractions. Nearly all of them chose the rock, and 86 percent managed to successfully use it to open the machine when it was presented to them 15 minutes later.
In another experiment, 78 percent of ravens were able to successfully barter with a human and exchange goods—trading a bottlecap for a reward—a higher success rate than what's been seen in similar experiments done with apes.
I phoned co-author Can Kabadayi, a doctoral student in cognitive science, over Skype to ask him about the new paper. (His profile photo featured two ravens perched on his head and shoulder.)
He described to me how one experiment took an eerie turn: One raven in the experiment figured out how to work their rock/box contraption first, then began teaching the method to other ravens, and finally invented its own way of doing it. Instead of dropping a rock to release a treat, the future Ruler of the Raven Kingdom constructed a layer of twigs in the tube, and pushed another stick down through the layer to force it open. The bird had to be removed from the experiment before it could teach any other birds how to do it.
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/wj8p3n/ravens-are-so-smart-one-hacked-this-researchers-experiment
The fact that corvids have brains the size of a walnut might not be a disadvantage. A study published last year revealed that though their brains are much smaller than some apes, like the capuchin monkey, the brains of corvids and large parrots have large numbers of neurons in some parts of their brains, at high density. Kabadayi said that their connection speeds might be even faster than those of mammals due to these neurons' close proximity to one another.
Perhaps the idea of problem-solving intelligence in velociraptors [no Google, I did not mean "velocipedes", get a better bloody dictionary already !] is not so outlandish after all.
In this study, researchers from Lund University in Sweden trained ravens to use a simple machine where they dropped a rock in a tube to earn a food reward. Later, they were put in a room with the puzzle box (but no rock), which was then removed. An hour later, the birds were presented with a row of objects: the rock, and several distractions. Nearly all of them chose the rock, and 86 percent managed to successfully use it to open the machine when it was presented to them 15 minutes later.
In another experiment, 78 percent of ravens were able to successfully barter with a human and exchange goods—trading a bottlecap for a reward—a higher success rate than what's been seen in similar experiments done with apes.
I phoned co-author Can Kabadayi, a doctoral student in cognitive science, over Skype to ask him about the new paper. (His profile photo featured two ravens perched on his head and shoulder.)
He described to me how one experiment took an eerie turn: One raven in the experiment figured out how to work their rock/box contraption first, then began teaching the method to other ravens, and finally invented its own way of doing it. Instead of dropping a rock to release a treat, the future Ruler of the Raven Kingdom constructed a layer of twigs in the tube, and pushed another stick down through the layer to force it open. The bird had to be removed from the experiment before it could teach any other birds how to do it.
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/wj8p3n/ravens-are-so-smart-one-hacked-this-researchers-experiment
Blair on Brexit
Blair says all the right things.
The election result should enable a fundamental re-appraisal of Brexit. Large numbers of people voted to stop a Hard Brexit and rejected explicitly the mandate Theresa May was demanding. Instead, both main parties remain wedded to leaving the Single Market.
I agree that if the will of the British people remains as it was last June, then Brexit will happen. But, to state what in a less surreal world would be blindingly obvious, it is possible, that, as we know more about what Brexit means, our ‘will’ changes. Our leaders should at least lead a proper debate about the options before us. They should become the nation’s educators, engaging us, explaining to us, laying out every alternative and what it means.
Rational consideration of the options would sensibly include the option of negotiating for Britain to stay within a Europe itself prepared to reform and meet us half way. There is a genuine and widespread desire for change and for the politics of social justice. This should alter the context in which we debate politics; and help influence the policy solutions.
But it doesn't alter the judgement about the risks of an unchanged Corbyn programme, if he became Prime Minister and tried to implement it at the same time as Brexit. If a right wing populist punch in the form of Brexit was followed by a left wing populist punch in the form of unreconstructed hard left economics, Britain would hit the canvas, flat on our back and be out for a long count.
In this time of accelerating change, we are offered two different types of conservativism, one of the right and one of the left. The election was fought like one from the 1980s, but with two competing visions of the 1960s. Neither answers the call of the future.
Politics today are volatile and unpredictable. In these times, best hold to what you believe. The centre may appear marginalised; but in the hearts and minds of many, it simply needs to be renewed. Brexit makes this renewal urgent.
http://institute.global/news/brexit-and-centre
The election result should enable a fundamental re-appraisal of Brexit. Large numbers of people voted to stop a Hard Brexit and rejected explicitly the mandate Theresa May was demanding. Instead, both main parties remain wedded to leaving the Single Market.
I agree that if the will of the British people remains as it was last June, then Brexit will happen. But, to state what in a less surreal world would be blindingly obvious, it is possible, that, as we know more about what Brexit means, our ‘will’ changes. Our leaders should at least lead a proper debate about the options before us. They should become the nation’s educators, engaging us, explaining to us, laying out every alternative and what it means.
Rational consideration of the options would sensibly include the option of negotiating for Britain to stay within a Europe itself prepared to reform and meet us half way. There is a genuine and widespread desire for change and for the politics of social justice. This should alter the context in which we debate politics; and help influence the policy solutions.
But it doesn't alter the judgement about the risks of an unchanged Corbyn programme, if he became Prime Minister and tried to implement it at the same time as Brexit. If a right wing populist punch in the form of Brexit was followed by a left wing populist punch in the form of unreconstructed hard left economics, Britain would hit the canvas, flat on our back and be out for a long count.
In this time of accelerating change, we are offered two different types of conservativism, one of the right and one of the left. The election was fought like one from the 1980s, but with two competing visions of the 1960s. Neither answers the call of the future.
Politics today are volatile and unpredictable. In these times, best hold to what you believe. The centre may appear marginalised; but in the hearts and minds of many, it simply needs to be renewed. Brexit makes this renewal urgent.
http://institute.global/news/brexit-and-centre
Friday 14 July 2017
The first hyperloop test doesn't impress me
I doubt very much this will ever become a thing, but you never know.
The step into the future occurred in May at the company’s Nevada test track, where engineers watched a magnetically levitating test sled fire through a tube in near-vacuum, reaching 70 mph in just over five seconds. That is but a fraction of the 700 mph or so Hyperloop One promises, but put that aside for now. What matters here is all the elements required to make hyperloop work, worked: propulsion, braking, and the levitation and vacuum systems that all but eliminate friction and air resistance so that pod shoots through the tube at maximum speed with minimal energy.
https://www.wired.com/story/hyperloop-one-test-success/
The step into the future occurred in May at the company’s Nevada test track, where engineers watched a magnetically levitating test sled fire through a tube in near-vacuum, reaching 70 mph in just over five seconds. That is but a fraction of the 700 mph or so Hyperloop One promises, but put that aside for now. What matters here is all the elements required to make hyperloop work, worked: propulsion, braking, and the levitation and vacuum systems that all but eliminate friction and air resistance so that pod shoots through the tube at maximum speed with minimal energy.
https://www.wired.com/story/hyperloop-one-test-success/
Lioness adopts a leopard
D'aaaaawwwww.
A baby leopard can't change his spots, but this lioness doesn't seem to mind. These beautiful pictures are the first ever taken of a wild lioness nursing a cub from a different species - an extremely rare event.The pair were spotted by Joop Van Der Linde, a guest at Ndutu Safari Lodge in Tanzania's Ngorongoro Conservation Area.
The scene is the Serengeti; the attentive mother, five-year-old Nosikitok. The lioness has a GPS collar fitted by Kope Lion, a conservation NGO, and three young cubs of her own - born around the 27-28 June.
Dr Luke Hunter, President and Chief Conservation Officer for Panthera, a global wild cat conservation organisation which supports Kope Lion, told the BBC the incident was "truly unique". "It's not something that I'm aware has ever happened before between large cats like this," he said. "We know there are cases where lionesses will adopt other lion cubs... But this is unprecedented. I know of no other case - between any large cat, for that matter - where the species has adopted or nursed the cub of another species."
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-40603065
A baby leopard can't change his spots, but this lioness doesn't seem to mind. These beautiful pictures are the first ever taken of a wild lioness nursing a cub from a different species - an extremely rare event.The pair were spotted by Joop Van Der Linde, a guest at Ndutu Safari Lodge in Tanzania's Ngorongoro Conservation Area.
The scene is the Serengeti; the attentive mother, five-year-old Nosikitok. The lioness has a GPS collar fitted by Kope Lion, a conservation NGO, and three young cubs of her own - born around the 27-28 June.
Dr Luke Hunter, President and Chief Conservation Officer for Panthera, a global wild cat conservation organisation which supports Kope Lion, told the BBC the incident was "truly unique". "It's not something that I'm aware has ever happened before between large cats like this," he said. "We know there are cases where lionesses will adopt other lion cubs... But this is unprecedented. I know of no other case - between any large cat, for that matter - where the species has adopted or nursed the cub of another species."
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-40603065
Thursday 13 July 2017
Memes in your genes
Technology is weird.
An image and short film has been encoded in DNA, using the units of inheritance as a medium for storing information. Using a genome editing tool known as Crispr, US scientists inserted a gif - five frames of a horse galloping - into the DNA of bacteria. Then the team sequenced the bacterial DNA to retrieve the gif and the image, verifying that the microbes had indeed incorporated the data as intended.
In order to insert this information into the genomes of bacteria, the researchers transferred the image and the movie onto nucleotides (building blocks of DNA), producing a code that related to the individual pixels of each image. For the gif, sequences were delivered frame-by-frame over five days to the bacterial cells.
The data were spread across the genomes of multiple bacteria, rather than just one, explained co-author Seth Shipman, from Harvard University in Massachusetts. "The information is not contained in a single cell, so each individual cell may only see certain bits or pieces of the movie. So what we had to do was reconstruct the whole movie from the different pieces," Dr Shipman told the BBC.
To "read" the information back, the researchers sequenced the bacterial DNA and used custom computer code to unscramble the genetic information, which spits out the images. The team was able to achieve 90% accuracy: "We were really happy with how it came out," Seth Shipman told me.
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-40585299
An image and short film has been encoded in DNA, using the units of inheritance as a medium for storing information. Using a genome editing tool known as Crispr, US scientists inserted a gif - five frames of a horse galloping - into the DNA of bacteria. Then the team sequenced the bacterial DNA to retrieve the gif and the image, verifying that the microbes had indeed incorporated the data as intended.
In order to insert this information into the genomes of bacteria, the researchers transferred the image and the movie onto nucleotides (building blocks of DNA), producing a code that related to the individual pixels of each image. For the gif, sequences were delivered frame-by-frame over five days to the bacterial cells.
The data were spread across the genomes of multiple bacteria, rather than just one, explained co-author Seth Shipman, from Harvard University in Massachusetts. "The information is not contained in a single cell, so each individual cell may only see certain bits or pieces of the movie. So what we had to do was reconstruct the whole movie from the different pieces," Dr Shipman told the BBC.
To "read" the information back, the researchers sequenced the bacterial DNA and used custom computer code to unscramble the genetic information, which spits out the images. The team was able to achieve 90% accuracy: "We were really happy with how it came out," Seth Shipman told me.
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-40585299
Lab-grown meat : the next Agricultural Revolution ?
In fact, using ‘cellular agriculture’, there’s no reason why scientists couldn’t grow artificial meat with characteristics from a combination of animals, or enhance lab-grown meat with healthier fats, vitamins or vaccines. We could even taste the flesh of rare animals that nobody would dream of slaughtering for food. Panda burger, anyone?
Why stop with animals ? Cannibalism : it's the new veganism. We'll get arseholes in restaurants demanding the cannibal option or that the staff should change their gloves to handle the human-meat generator...
Achieving a taste and texture that rivals real meat seems to be the easy bit. Following a comment from the critics who tasted his original burger and said it was a bit dry, Post has started to culture fat cells and tissue from cows, which add moisture when mixed in with the muscle fibres. He has also discovered that starving the cells of oxygen can increase the amount of flavour-giving proteins in the final product.
The challenge facing Post and others in the field is upscaling the process. To grow cells industrially requires a large ‘bioreactor’ – a high-tech vat that can provide the perfect conditions for growth but also the movement and stimulation to exercise the cells. The largest existing bioreactor capable of doing this has a volume of 25,000 litres (about one-hundredth the size of an Olympic swimming pool), which Post estimates could produce enough meat to feed 10,000 people. It’s likely that many more of these would be needed to make a viable meat-processing plant.
That's a tiny volume, and much is made of the possibility of reducing the amount of livestock and their huge associated costs. But what about artificial plants ? Vast areas of land are currently dedicated to crops which would otherwise be ecologically diverse forests. Suppose you just need a few large bioreactors to feed a small town - the implications are every bit as big as the first agricultural revolution.
The first crop of cultured meat products will inevitably take the form of burgers, nuggets and other processed meats – unprocessed meat has a complex structure of bone, blood vessels, connective tissue and fat, and grows in specific shapes. Yet it should eventually be possible to grow complex tissue like this too, says Dr Paul Mozdziak, Gibbons’s colleague at North Carolina State University. He and scientists at various cellular agriculture organisations (such as New Harvest, SuperMeat and Future Meat) are keeping an eye on developments in regenerative medicine, the branch of biomedical science concerned with growing replacement organs and tissue for procedures such as skin grafts.
People will always be extremely sensitive about what is on their plate. Despite the welfare and environmental justifications for cultured meat, the thought of your burger coming from a lab rather than a farm is a strange idea. But if artificial meat lives up to its promise and becomes the environmentally friendly, safer, cheaper, and even tastier way to eat meat, the concept of raising animals in their millions for slaughter could very quickly seem much stranger.
Like the idea of getting a human being to drive a car, the prospect of eating meat from a living, emotional animal that's been raised in a muddy field fertilized by its own excrement is likely to eventually seem like a ridiculous thing to do.
Originally shared by BBC Focus Magazine - science and technology
Lab-grown beef burger anyone? #FoodFocus
http://bit.ly/2uhmkfh
Why stop with animals ? Cannibalism : it's the new veganism. We'll get arseholes in restaurants demanding the cannibal option or that the staff should change their gloves to handle the human-meat generator...
Achieving a taste and texture that rivals real meat seems to be the easy bit. Following a comment from the critics who tasted his original burger and said it was a bit dry, Post has started to culture fat cells and tissue from cows, which add moisture when mixed in with the muscle fibres. He has also discovered that starving the cells of oxygen can increase the amount of flavour-giving proteins in the final product.
The challenge facing Post and others in the field is upscaling the process. To grow cells industrially requires a large ‘bioreactor’ – a high-tech vat that can provide the perfect conditions for growth but also the movement and stimulation to exercise the cells. The largest existing bioreactor capable of doing this has a volume of 25,000 litres (about one-hundredth the size of an Olympic swimming pool), which Post estimates could produce enough meat to feed 10,000 people. It’s likely that many more of these would be needed to make a viable meat-processing plant.
That's a tiny volume, and much is made of the possibility of reducing the amount of livestock and their huge associated costs. But what about artificial plants ? Vast areas of land are currently dedicated to crops which would otherwise be ecologically diverse forests. Suppose you just need a few large bioreactors to feed a small town - the implications are every bit as big as the first agricultural revolution.
The first crop of cultured meat products will inevitably take the form of burgers, nuggets and other processed meats – unprocessed meat has a complex structure of bone, blood vessels, connective tissue and fat, and grows in specific shapes. Yet it should eventually be possible to grow complex tissue like this too, says Dr Paul Mozdziak, Gibbons’s colleague at North Carolina State University. He and scientists at various cellular agriculture organisations (such as New Harvest, SuperMeat and Future Meat) are keeping an eye on developments in regenerative medicine, the branch of biomedical science concerned with growing replacement organs and tissue for procedures such as skin grafts.
People will always be extremely sensitive about what is on their plate. Despite the welfare and environmental justifications for cultured meat, the thought of your burger coming from a lab rather than a farm is a strange idea. But if artificial meat lives up to its promise and becomes the environmentally friendly, safer, cheaper, and even tastier way to eat meat, the concept of raising animals in their millions for slaughter could very quickly seem much stranger.
Like the idea of getting a human being to drive a car, the prospect of eating meat from a living, emotional animal that's been raised in a muddy field fertilized by its own excrement is likely to eventually seem like a ridiculous thing to do.
Originally shared by BBC Focus Magazine - science and technology
Lab-grown beef burger anyone? #FoodFocus
http://bit.ly/2uhmkfh
Wednesday 12 July 2017
Weaponised propaganda in the Trump election
Excellent long read on Cambridge Analytica and other corporate propoganda companies, this time focusing on the election of the Grand High Douchebag rather than Brexit.
In the past, political messaging and propaganda battles were arms races to weaponize narrative through new mediums -- waged in print, on the radio, and on TV. This new wave has brought the world something exponentially more insidious -- personalized, adaptive, and ultimately addictive propaganda. Silicon Valley spent the last ten years building platforms whose natural end state is digital addiction. In 2016, Trump and his allies hijacked them.
Where traditional pollsters might ask a person outright how they plan to vote, Analytica relies not on what they say but what they do, tracking their online movements and interests and serving up multivariate ads designed to change a person’s behavior by preying on individual personality traits.
For Analytica, the feedback is instant and the response automated: Did this specific swing voter in Pennsylvania click on the ad attacking Clinton’s negligence over her email server? Yes? Serve her more content that emphasizes failures of personal responsibility. No? The automated script will try a different headline, perhaps one that plays on a different personality trait -- say the voter’s tendency to be agreeable toward authority figures. Perhaps: “Top Intelligence Officials Agree: Clinton’s Emails Jeopardized National Security.”
Much of this is done through Facebook dark posts, which are only visible to those being targeted... there’s no way for anyone outside of Analytica or the Trump campaign to track the content of these ads. In this case, there was no SEC oversight, no public scrutiny of Trump’s attack ads. Just the rapid-eye-movement of millions of individual users scanning their Facebook feeds.
“These companies,” Moore says, “have found a way of transgressing 150 years of legislation that we’ve developed to make elections fair and open.”
Research by Woolley and his Oxford-based team in the lead-up to the 2016 election found that pro-Trump political messaging relied heavily on bots to spread fake news and discredit Hillary Clinton. By election day, Trump’s bots outnumbered hers, 5:1.. There's no way to know for sure whether Cambridge Analytica was responsible for subcontracting the creation of those Trump bots.
From now on, the distinguishing factor between those who win elections and those who lose them will be how a candidate uses that data to refine their machine learning algorithms and automated engagement tactics. Elections in 2018 and 2020 won’t be a contest of ideas, but a battle of automated behavior change. The fight for the future will be a proxy war of machine learning. It will be waged online, in secret, and with the unwitting help of all of you.
No, dammit, I don't want a future where elections are decided by who has the best bots. That future is stupid.
https://scout.ai/story/the-rise-of-the-weaponized-ai-propaganda-machine
In the past, political messaging and propaganda battles were arms races to weaponize narrative through new mediums -- waged in print, on the radio, and on TV. This new wave has brought the world something exponentially more insidious -- personalized, adaptive, and ultimately addictive propaganda. Silicon Valley spent the last ten years building platforms whose natural end state is digital addiction. In 2016, Trump and his allies hijacked them.
Where traditional pollsters might ask a person outright how they plan to vote, Analytica relies not on what they say but what they do, tracking their online movements and interests and serving up multivariate ads designed to change a person’s behavior by preying on individual personality traits.
For Analytica, the feedback is instant and the response automated: Did this specific swing voter in Pennsylvania click on the ad attacking Clinton’s negligence over her email server? Yes? Serve her more content that emphasizes failures of personal responsibility. No? The automated script will try a different headline, perhaps one that plays on a different personality trait -- say the voter’s tendency to be agreeable toward authority figures. Perhaps: “Top Intelligence Officials Agree: Clinton’s Emails Jeopardized National Security.”
Much of this is done through Facebook dark posts, which are only visible to those being targeted... there’s no way for anyone outside of Analytica or the Trump campaign to track the content of these ads. In this case, there was no SEC oversight, no public scrutiny of Trump’s attack ads. Just the rapid-eye-movement of millions of individual users scanning their Facebook feeds.
“These companies,” Moore says, “have found a way of transgressing 150 years of legislation that we’ve developed to make elections fair and open.”
Research by Woolley and his Oxford-based team in the lead-up to the 2016 election found that pro-Trump political messaging relied heavily on bots to spread fake news and discredit Hillary Clinton. By election day, Trump’s bots outnumbered hers, 5:1.. There's no way to know for sure whether Cambridge Analytica was responsible for subcontracting the creation of those Trump bots.
From now on, the distinguishing factor between those who win elections and those who lose them will be how a candidate uses that data to refine their machine learning algorithms and automated engagement tactics. Elections in 2018 and 2020 won’t be a contest of ideas, but a battle of automated behavior change. The fight for the future will be a proxy war of machine learning. It will be waged online, in secret, and with the unwitting help of all of you.
No, dammit, I don't want a future where elections are decided by who has the best bots. That future is stupid.
https://scout.ai/story/the-rise-of-the-weaponized-ai-propaganda-machine
Tuesday 11 July 2017
Boris Johnson being predictably stupid as usual
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has told MPs the European Union can "go whistle" for any "extortionate" final payment from the UK on Brexit. And he said that the government had "no plan" for what to do in the event of no deal being agreed with the EU. He said: "The sums I have seen that they propose to demand from this country appear to be extortionate. Go whistle seems to me to be an entirely appropriate expression," he added.
Asked during Commons questions if there was a strategy, either public or private, for what would happen if there was no agreement on Brexit, Mr Johnson said: "There is no plan for no deal because we are going to get a great deal."
No words. So stupid. I had no idea. They should have sent a poet.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-40571123
Asked during Commons questions if there was a strategy, either public or private, for what would happen if there was no agreement on Brexit, Mr Johnson said: "There is no plan for no deal because we are going to get a great deal."
No words. So stupid. I had no idea. They should have sent a poet.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-40571123
Airships versus fusion power
It would be interesting to plot a graph of how frequently airships are predicted to be the aircraft of the future over time, along with claims of fusion energy's perpetually imminent breakthrough.
Standing in the middle of what used to be a sugar cane field four miles from the south Brazilian city of São Carlos is a huge arched hangar. Inside the purpose-built structure is an aviation first for Brazil – a new design that could change the way the country develops.
It also happens to be a form of flying machine that has all but disappeared since the 1930s. It is the first manned airship ever built in Brazil. It has already flown in private and is now due to make its first public flight this July. This is part of a £35m ($44.6m) project to make Brazil a centre of the airship industry. The company behind it has even built a new factory ready to manufacture a fleet of airships.
The ADB-3-3 looks like the kind of airship you find in a faded photo in a history book - or flying over the Super Bowl. It is about the size of a small Airbus airliner and underneath its huge helium-filled envelope is a gondola that can take six people, and two engines that can move it through the air at a maximum speed of 55mph (95km/h).
It is the prototype of the smallest of a range of airships that its developer, Airship do Brasil (ADB), hopes will soon lead to a giant design that can carry 30 tonnes of cargo – or even a small tank. Their first goal is to get the ADB-3-3 certified safe to fly commercially and into production. Then in 2018 they hope to begin development of the cargo airship.
“Brazil has lots of reasons to want to use airships. They have so much hard-to-get-to territory that they cannot afford to build roads, railways and airports everywhere they need them. It’s the tarmac, the rails and the airport buildings that cost all the money.... And Airship do Brasil are steaming along nicely, but the jump from a small demonstrator airship to a large cargo-carrying airship is perhaps the biggest challenge for any airship company – and no one has done it successfully since the 1930s.”
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170711-can-brazil-bring-the-airship-back-from-the-dead
Standing in the middle of what used to be a sugar cane field four miles from the south Brazilian city of São Carlos is a huge arched hangar. Inside the purpose-built structure is an aviation first for Brazil – a new design that could change the way the country develops.
It also happens to be a form of flying machine that has all but disappeared since the 1930s. It is the first manned airship ever built in Brazil. It has already flown in private and is now due to make its first public flight this July. This is part of a £35m ($44.6m) project to make Brazil a centre of the airship industry. The company behind it has even built a new factory ready to manufacture a fleet of airships.
The ADB-3-3 looks like the kind of airship you find in a faded photo in a history book - or flying over the Super Bowl. It is about the size of a small Airbus airliner and underneath its huge helium-filled envelope is a gondola that can take six people, and two engines that can move it through the air at a maximum speed of 55mph (95km/h).
It is the prototype of the smallest of a range of airships that its developer, Airship do Brasil (ADB), hopes will soon lead to a giant design that can carry 30 tonnes of cargo – or even a small tank. Their first goal is to get the ADB-3-3 certified safe to fly commercially and into production. Then in 2018 they hope to begin development of the cargo airship.
“Brazil has lots of reasons to want to use airships. They have so much hard-to-get-to territory that they cannot afford to build roads, railways and airports everywhere they need them. It’s the tarmac, the rails and the airport buildings that cost all the money.... And Airship do Brasil are steaming along nicely, but the jump from a small demonstrator airship to a large cargo-carrying airship is perhaps the biggest challenge for any airship company – and no one has done it successfully since the 1930s.”
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170711-can-brazil-bring-the-airship-back-from-the-dead
Saturday 1 July 2017
The Dunning-Kruger effect has been known since antiquity
Dunning & Kruger ? Couple of amateur hacks...
Corbyn dealing with dissent
Ah, so that's what's been happening during my internet absence. How utterly astonishingly unpredictable.
Can we please now agree that Corbyn is neither a) nice b) sensible or c) even a better choice than May ? How in God's name do you expect anti-austerity measures to be even remotely credible if we exit the single market ?
Sigh...
Labour MPs who back staying in the EU single market have vowed to keep the pressure up on the government and their own leadership in the Brexit process. Fifty Labour MPs defied Jeremy Corbyn's orders and backed single market membership in a vote on Thursday. Three of them were subsequently sacked as frontbenchers. The BBC understands the rebels think up to 90 Labour MPs back their cause and they could work with Tory MPs who also want a "soft Brexit" in future votes.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-40460591
Can we please now agree that Corbyn is neither a) nice b) sensible or c) even a better choice than May ? How in God's name do you expect anti-austerity measures to be even remotely credible if we exit the single market ?
Sigh...
Labour MPs who back staying in the EU single market have vowed to keep the pressure up on the government and their own leadership in the Brexit process. Fifty Labour MPs defied Jeremy Corbyn's orders and backed single market membership in a vote on Thursday. Three of them were subsequently sacked as frontbenchers. The BBC understands the rebels think up to 90 Labour MPs back their cause and they could work with Tory MPs who also want a "soft Brexit" in future votes.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-40460591
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