A program to help you rescue old data. Looks useful !
WebPlotDigitizer has been continuously developed since its creation in 2011 by Ankit Rohatgi at the University of Notre Dame (Indiana, USA). This software uses affine transformations to map pixel location in the image to data points on a figure based on the calibration points provided by the user. Various image processing algorithms included with this software can be used to extract large number of data points from uploaded figures with great precision.
In order to extract a spectra from an archival paper, the first step is to create an image that isolates the spectrum, including the horizontal and vertical axes. The presence of text and legends won’t interfere. The software will ask the user to select a few known points on the axes (2 points on the X-axis and 2 more points on the Y-axis for a 2D spectrum) and enter the corresponding values.
To acquire the data after plot axes calibration, several options are available. A tedious option is to manually select data points on the image (particularly helpful for low-resolution spectra with error bars). An alternative, faster method, is to use the automatic mode. In the automatic mode, the user can set up and execute an extraction algorithm that can differentiate between the data points and the image background and identify several data points in a short time. A background mode also allows the algorithms to include everything except the background color as potential data points, a very useful feature in the case of overlapping curves/spectra of different colors.
https://arxiv.org/abs/1708.02025
Tuesday, 8 August 2017
The amazing shrinking hedgehog
Yay !
A hedgehog that became inflated to twice its size has been returned to the wild after being "popped" in Cheshire. The hedgehog, known as Monty, was diagnosed with "balloon syndrome" - a rare condition caused by gas collecting under the skin. He was treated at Stapeley Grange Wildlife Centre in Nantwich after being found in Doncaster.
An inspector said the hedgehog's condition was "the worst" she had ever seen. Staff at the centre named him "Monty" after the Montgolfier brothers who invented the hot air balloon. Due to his condition, Monty had been unable to walk and could not get all four paws on the ground at the same time - which meant he ended up walking round in circles.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-stoke-staffordshire-40849418
A hedgehog that became inflated to twice its size has been returned to the wild after being "popped" in Cheshire. The hedgehog, known as Monty, was diagnosed with "balloon syndrome" - a rare condition caused by gas collecting under the skin. He was treated at Stapeley Grange Wildlife Centre in Nantwich after being found in Doncaster.
An inspector said the hedgehog's condition was "the worst" she had ever seen. Staff at the centre named him "Monty" after the Montgolfier brothers who invented the hot air balloon. Due to his condition, Monty had been unable to walk and could not get all four paws on the ground at the same time - which meant he ended up walking round in circles.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-stoke-staffordshire-40849418
Teaching crows to fly
Soon, she'll be learning how to fly other birds.
Even when the feathers grew back, Nugget wasn’t able to take off properly—she would often try to fly, crash-land, and break her feathers again. One of the other study crows, named Dara, also had some trouble flying, while the rest of the crows were fully flighted. When Davie designed their enclosure, she did so with these varying levels of mobility in mind. “We wanted to make sure that the exhibit was long enough and tall enough to sustain prolonged flight and let the flighted birds get to high perches,” she says. “Then we built ramps up to different levels in the exhibit, and branches that were designed in a sort of stepwise manner.”
What began as a simple routine grew more complex as she brought in different pieces of equipment: “She first started off rapidly moving her wings up and down, and then would do a little hop,” says Davie. After a few weeks of that, she added a run-and-jump, and then a hop from a high branch to a lower one and then back again. Eventually, she added a final move: she would climb up the wire mesh wall of the cage, and glide from there to the ground.
Nugget knew how to pace herself. Reviewing the hour-long tapes they made of the crows’ behaviour every morning, the researchers saw her repeat this workout for 15 minutes or half an hour, and then spend the rest of the time doing regular crow things: “hiding food, eating food, wandering around,” and hanging out with the other birds, says Davie.
The training paid off. In early December, a couple of weeks after the researchers had spotted her climbing the cage wire—and six months after she first started performing the routine—the researchers watched, surprised, as Nugget took off from the ground and flew straight up to a high perch. “We were just like, ‘Oh my god, you did it!,’” Davie recalls. “After that, we didn’t see her practice behaviour again."
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/crow-taught-herself-to-fly
Even when the feathers grew back, Nugget wasn’t able to take off properly—she would often try to fly, crash-land, and break her feathers again. One of the other study crows, named Dara, also had some trouble flying, while the rest of the crows were fully flighted. When Davie designed their enclosure, she did so with these varying levels of mobility in mind. “We wanted to make sure that the exhibit was long enough and tall enough to sustain prolonged flight and let the flighted birds get to high perches,” she says. “Then we built ramps up to different levels in the exhibit, and branches that were designed in a sort of stepwise manner.”
What began as a simple routine grew more complex as she brought in different pieces of equipment: “She first started off rapidly moving her wings up and down, and then would do a little hop,” says Davie. After a few weeks of that, she added a run-and-jump, and then a hop from a high branch to a lower one and then back again. Eventually, she added a final move: she would climb up the wire mesh wall of the cage, and glide from there to the ground.
Nugget knew how to pace herself. Reviewing the hour-long tapes they made of the crows’ behaviour every morning, the researchers saw her repeat this workout for 15 minutes or half an hour, and then spend the rest of the time doing regular crow things: “hiding food, eating food, wandering around,” and hanging out with the other birds, says Davie.
The training paid off. In early December, a couple of weeks after the researchers had spotted her climbing the cage wire—and six months after she first started performing the routine—the researchers watched, surprised, as Nugget took off from the ground and flew straight up to a high perch. “We were just like, ‘Oh my god, you did it!,’” Davie recalls. “After that, we didn’t see her practice behaviour again."
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/crow-taught-herself-to-fly
What do you get if you cross a rocket with a raccoon ?
More on the company hoping to launch satellites from Snowdonia.
I would love them to succeed, but my oh my the opening graphic and poor English (it isn't any better on the rest of the site) doth not fill me with confidence. So far as I can tell, they have no hardware and a team consisting entirely of managers. No mention of any aereopsace engineers, though their bios are all on linkedin which I refuse to join because it's Spam Central. Their animations are OK, but... I'm almost tempted to write to them and say, "look, I'll give you this better graphic on the house because you can't use that terrible font, boring slogan, incorrect use of an article and weirdly capitalised letters on the front page of your website, that's just wrong."
Anyway :
We are developing a High Altitude launching system, a stratospheric balloon will lift a self operative platform from where to deploy the launcher. Saving cost by skipping the highest density part of the atmosphere and gaining altitude up to 35 km, smaller and cheaper rocket will deliver the payload into the required orbits. Based on existing technology, improved and adapted to maximize performance and provide affordable access to space.
The animation says it can deliver 150 kg to LEO and the first stage is fully reusable (with parachutes, no fancy rocket-powered landing system).
However, credit where credit is due :
Innovating, researching and developing feasible “Rockoon” technology...
Rockoons !!!
http://b2-space.com/#projects
I would love them to succeed, but my oh my the opening graphic and poor English (it isn't any better on the rest of the site) doth not fill me with confidence. So far as I can tell, they have no hardware and a team consisting entirely of managers. No mention of any aereopsace engineers, though their bios are all on linkedin which I refuse to join because it's Spam Central. Their animations are OK, but... I'm almost tempted to write to them and say, "look, I'll give you this better graphic on the house because you can't use that terrible font, boring slogan, incorrect use of an article and weirdly capitalised letters on the front page of your website, that's just wrong."
Anyway :
We are developing a High Altitude launching system, a stratospheric balloon will lift a self operative platform from where to deploy the launcher. Saving cost by skipping the highest density part of the atmosphere and gaining altitude up to 35 km, smaller and cheaper rocket will deliver the payload into the required orbits. Based on existing technology, improved and adapted to maximize performance and provide affordable access to space.
The animation says it can deliver 150 kg to LEO and the first stage is fully reusable (with parachutes, no fancy rocket-powered landing system).
However, credit where credit is due :
Innovating, researching and developing feasible “Rockoon” technology...
Rockoons !!!
http://b2-space.com/#projects
Malcom was right
In extreme conditions, iife finds a way...
In a surreal landscape of colours, dominated by luminescent ponds of yellows and greens, boiling hot water bubbles up like a cauldron, whilst poisonous chlorine and sulphur gases choke the air. Known as the “gateway to hell”, the Danakil Depression in Ethiopia is scorchingly hot and one of the most alien places on Earth. Yet a recent expedition to the region has found it is teeming with life.
In the Dallol crater, the geothermal activity increases the temperature even further, so the brine water reaching the surface is about 100C. As well as the sweltering heat, the scientists have to cope with toxic hydrogen sulphide gas, not to mention chlorine vapour burning their airways and choking their lungs. They must all wear gas masks to work there for any period of time.
In March 2017, Cavalazzi’s lab and their colleagues found life in Danakil, after they managed to isolate and extract DNA from bacteria. They found that the bacteria are “polyextremophiles”, which means they are adapted to extreme acidity, high temperatures and high salinity all at once. It is the first absolute confirmation of microbial life in the Danakil acidic pools.
One of the scientists’ discoveries looks set to establish a new record. The team found life in a pool where the acidity was measured as zero pH. That pool is the most acidic place where life has been found on Earth. The previous record was in the Rio Tinto, a river in Spain that has a pH of 2.
Microbes discovered in Yellowstone and other hydrothermal environments have evolved adaptations to help them survive. These include having proteins and enzymes that are more chemically stable at higher temperatures. This can be achieved by having more bonds and connections between amino acids, the building blocks that make up proteins. It may be that the bacteria in the Danakil Depression hot springs have acquired similar adaptations.
Whatever the case, the scientists’ findings may help us understand how life could have arisen on other planets and moons. “On Mars, you have mineral deposits and sulphate deposits similar to those seen in the Danakil Depression. You also have active brine flowing periodically,” says Cavalazzi. So by studying in which extreme Earthly environments life can survive, and how it does so, we can start to figure out which regions of planets like Mars might be habitable.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170803-in-earths-hottest-place-life-has-been-found-in-pure-acid
In a surreal landscape of colours, dominated by luminescent ponds of yellows and greens, boiling hot water bubbles up like a cauldron, whilst poisonous chlorine and sulphur gases choke the air. Known as the “gateway to hell”, the Danakil Depression in Ethiopia is scorchingly hot and one of the most alien places on Earth. Yet a recent expedition to the region has found it is teeming with life.
In the Dallol crater, the geothermal activity increases the temperature even further, so the brine water reaching the surface is about 100C. As well as the sweltering heat, the scientists have to cope with toxic hydrogen sulphide gas, not to mention chlorine vapour burning their airways and choking their lungs. They must all wear gas masks to work there for any period of time.
In March 2017, Cavalazzi’s lab and their colleagues found life in Danakil, after they managed to isolate and extract DNA from bacteria. They found that the bacteria are “polyextremophiles”, which means they are adapted to extreme acidity, high temperatures and high salinity all at once. It is the first absolute confirmation of microbial life in the Danakil acidic pools.
One of the scientists’ discoveries looks set to establish a new record. The team found life in a pool where the acidity was measured as zero pH. That pool is the most acidic place where life has been found on Earth. The previous record was in the Rio Tinto, a river in Spain that has a pH of 2.
Microbes discovered in Yellowstone and other hydrothermal environments have evolved adaptations to help them survive. These include having proteins and enzymes that are more chemically stable at higher temperatures. This can be achieved by having more bonds and connections between amino acids, the building blocks that make up proteins. It may be that the bacteria in the Danakil Depression hot springs have acquired similar adaptations.
Whatever the case, the scientists’ findings may help us understand how life could have arisen on other planets and moons. “On Mars, you have mineral deposits and sulphate deposits similar to those seen in the Danakil Depression. You also have active brine flowing periodically,” says Cavalazzi. So by studying in which extreme Earthly environments life can survive, and how it does so, we can start to figure out which regions of planets like Mars might be habitable.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170803-in-earths-hottest-place-life-has-been-found-in-pure-acid
Escaping Wales the hard way
Satellites could soon be launched into space from Snowdonia. B2Space and Snowdonia Aerospace Centre want to create 93 specialist jobs at Llanbedr airfield, Gwynedd. The number is based on it launching 30 satellites a year by 2020 for purposes including tracking changes to the environment and coastlines.
The former military airfield is also one of eight shortlisted by the UK government to launch commercial space flights. B2Space's Valentin Canales said about 3,000 micro satellites will need launching in the next five years as we "use space in a way that hasn't been considered before". His firm and the aerospace centre have bid for grants totalling £10m to make the field, near Harlech, a key UK site for this. Other possible uses for them include providing communications to remote areas or for natural disaster management.
The satellites will be launched from a stratospheric balloon with a self-operative platform. A three-stage rocket will then deliver them to the required orbits.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-north-west-wales-40855358
The former military airfield is also one of eight shortlisted by the UK government to launch commercial space flights. B2Space's Valentin Canales said about 3,000 micro satellites will need launching in the next five years as we "use space in a way that hasn't been considered before". His firm and the aerospace centre have bid for grants totalling £10m to make the field, near Harlech, a key UK site for this. Other possible uses for them include providing communications to remote areas or for natural disaster management.
The satellites will be launched from a stratospheric balloon with a self-operative platform. A three-stage rocket will then deliver them to the required orbits.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-north-west-wales-40855358
Monday, 7 August 2017
The next great telescope
And so it begins. A new chapter in the glorious history of giant telescope mismanagement !
Among the western community of astronomers there are also questions about the scientific purpose of the FAST telescope. As part of a recent National Science Foundation review of its facilities, US officials placed the similar Arecibo radio telescope near the bottom of its priorities list.
Yes, but that's only because they're a bunch of feckin' idiots.
While FAST is larger than Arecibo, its effective size is not really 500 meters across because the instrument spends much of its time off zenith. Therefore the effective size is about 400 meters, compared to Arecibo's 300 meters.
Not quite true. FAST deforms its spherical mirror to form a parabola 300 m across. The deformation can be controlled so as to control where the dish is effectively pointing. Arecibo's solution is to use instruments which receive signal only from a ~225 m wide area of the dish, hence moving the instruments controls the pointing.
FAST has some advantage of slightly higher sensitivity* and resolution, but the main gain is that it has twice the sky coverage Arecibo does. But it's much more limited in terms of frequency coverage (by around a factor 3 IIRC). It's not yet known if it will be possible to upgrade this, because the accuracy with which the dish is deformed would need to be improved.
* Caveat - it might be more suited for wide-field surveys, depending on their instrument designs, but Arecibo could be upgraded substantially here.
Arecibo also has the capability to transmit radio waves, making it an effective tool to identify targets such as near-Earth asteroids. FAST is only a passive instrument.
And FAST will likely never have this capability, because radar transmitters are heavy. The deformable dish means FAST have a lightweight platform that can't carry as many instruments as Arecibo can. Arecibo can change instruments literally at the click of a mouse. For FAST this is a much more time-consuming operation.
https://arstechnica.co.uk/science/2017/08/china-built-the-worlds-largest-telescope-but-has-no-one-to-run-it/
Among the western community of astronomers there are also questions about the scientific purpose of the FAST telescope. As part of a recent National Science Foundation review of its facilities, US officials placed the similar Arecibo radio telescope near the bottom of its priorities list.
Yes, but that's only because they're a bunch of feckin' idiots.
While FAST is larger than Arecibo, its effective size is not really 500 meters across because the instrument spends much of its time off zenith. Therefore the effective size is about 400 meters, compared to Arecibo's 300 meters.
Not quite true. FAST deforms its spherical mirror to form a parabola 300 m across. The deformation can be controlled so as to control where the dish is effectively pointing. Arecibo's solution is to use instruments which receive signal only from a ~225 m wide area of the dish, hence moving the instruments controls the pointing.
FAST has some advantage of slightly higher sensitivity* and resolution, but the main gain is that it has twice the sky coverage Arecibo does. But it's much more limited in terms of frequency coverage (by around a factor 3 IIRC). It's not yet known if it will be possible to upgrade this, because the accuracy with which the dish is deformed would need to be improved.
* Caveat - it might be more suited for wide-field surveys, depending on their instrument designs, but Arecibo could be upgraded substantially here.
Arecibo also has the capability to transmit radio waves, making it an effective tool to identify targets such as near-Earth asteroids. FAST is only a passive instrument.
And FAST will likely never have this capability, because radar transmitters are heavy. The deformable dish means FAST have a lightweight platform that can't carry as many instruments as Arecibo can. Arecibo can change instruments literally at the click of a mouse. For FAST this is a much more time-consuming operation.
https://arstechnica.co.uk/science/2017/08/china-built-the-worlds-largest-telescope-but-has-no-one-to-run-it/
Sunday, 6 August 2017
The dystopian future is hilarious
Who knew robotic law enforcement would look this hilarious ? Help, I'm being chased by this cute little robot with googly eyes...
Independent evolution of the nervous system
Evolving a nervous system is easy-peasy
When scientists began examining the ctenophore nervous system in the late 1800s, what they saw through their microscopes seemed ordinary. A thick tangle of neurons sat near the animal’s south pole, a diffuse network of nerves spread throughout its body, and a handful of thick nerve bundles extended to each tentacle and to each of its eight bands of cilia... By stimulating the right nerves, researchers could even prompt its cilia to rotate in different patterns – causing it to swim forward or back.
In short, the ctenophore’s nerves seemed to look and act just like those of any other animal. So biologists assumed that they were the same. This view of ctenophores played into a larger narrative on the evolution of all animals – one that would also turn out to be wrong.
Moroz’s transcriptome and genomic DNA sequences showed that the ctenophore also lacked many other genes, known from the rest of the animal kingdom, that are crucial for building and operating nervous systems... It was missing genes that guide embryonic cells through the complex transformation into mature nerve cells. And it was missing well-known genes that orchestrate the stepwise connection of those neurons into mature, functioning circuits. ‘It was much more than just the presence or absence of just a few genes,’ he says. ‘It was really a grand design.’
It meant that the nervous system of the ctenophore had evolved from the ground up, using a different set of molecules and genes than any other animal known on Earth. It was a classic case of convergence: the lineage of ctenophores had evolved a nervous system using whatever genetic starting materials were available. In a sense, it was an alien nervous system – evolved separately from the rest of the animal kingdom.
Ctenophores provide an extreme, striking example of what is probably a general pattern: just as eyes, wings and fins evolved many times over the course of animal evolution, so too have nerve cells. Moroz now counts nine to 12 independent evolutionary origins of the nervous system – including at least one in cnidaria (the group that includes jellyfish and anemones), three in echinoderms (the group that includes sea stars, sea lilies, urchins and sand dollars), one in arthropods (the group that includes insects, spiders and crustaceans), one in molluscs (the group that includes clams, snails, squid and octopuses), one in vertebrates – and now, at least one in ctenophores.
https://aeon.co/essays/what-the-ctenophore-says-about-the-evolution-of-intelligence
When scientists began examining the ctenophore nervous system in the late 1800s, what they saw through their microscopes seemed ordinary. A thick tangle of neurons sat near the animal’s south pole, a diffuse network of nerves spread throughout its body, and a handful of thick nerve bundles extended to each tentacle and to each of its eight bands of cilia... By stimulating the right nerves, researchers could even prompt its cilia to rotate in different patterns – causing it to swim forward or back.
In short, the ctenophore’s nerves seemed to look and act just like those of any other animal. So biologists assumed that they were the same. This view of ctenophores played into a larger narrative on the evolution of all animals – one that would also turn out to be wrong.
Moroz’s transcriptome and genomic DNA sequences showed that the ctenophore also lacked many other genes, known from the rest of the animal kingdom, that are crucial for building and operating nervous systems... It was missing genes that guide embryonic cells through the complex transformation into mature nerve cells. And it was missing well-known genes that orchestrate the stepwise connection of those neurons into mature, functioning circuits. ‘It was much more than just the presence or absence of just a few genes,’ he says. ‘It was really a grand design.’
It meant that the nervous system of the ctenophore had evolved from the ground up, using a different set of molecules and genes than any other animal known on Earth. It was a classic case of convergence: the lineage of ctenophores had evolved a nervous system using whatever genetic starting materials were available. In a sense, it was an alien nervous system – evolved separately from the rest of the animal kingdom.
Ctenophores provide an extreme, striking example of what is probably a general pattern: just as eyes, wings and fins evolved many times over the course of animal evolution, so too have nerve cells. Moroz now counts nine to 12 independent evolutionary origins of the nervous system – including at least one in cnidaria (the group that includes jellyfish and anemones), three in echinoderms (the group that includes sea stars, sea lilies, urchins and sand dollars), one in arthropods (the group that includes insects, spiders and crustaceans), one in molluscs (the group that includes clams, snails, squid and octopuses), one in vertebrates – and now, at least one in ctenophores.
https://aeon.co/essays/what-the-ctenophore-says-about-the-evolution-of-intelligence
Saturday, 5 August 2017
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