In emergencies, people place too much trust in robots
Imagine that you're in an unfamiliar building, participating in a research experiment. A robot escorts you from room to room to complete a survey about robots and then read an unrelated magazine article. The robot that you are following around is a bit unreliable, though. It guides you to the wrong room a few times and has broken down before. (The robot is secretly being controlled by one of the experimenters.)Suddenly, the fire alarms go off and smoke fills the hallway. The robot, with the wor..>> view originalEinstein's Struggles with Gravitational Waves
Unless you have been living under a rock, by now you have heard that gravitational waves, predicted by Albert Einstein, have been discovered. These are two monumental achievements that ought to be lauded. Einstein for seeing the ramification of the theory of general relativity that he worked so hard to accomplish, and to the LIGO team for steadfastly pursuing the goal to measure the ripples in spacetime directly, and with that create a new type of telescope that opens up a portal, as it were, t..>> view originalExplaining LIGO: detecting colliding black holes and gravitational waves
Explaining LIGO: detecting colliding black holes and gravitational waves By Wiehahn Diederichs: Columnist on 1 March, 2016 Feature image: The LIGO Facility in Hanford, Washington As most of you have probably heard by now, two astonishing discoveries have recently been made (or rather one discovery leading to another discovery) by the LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) facilities in Livingston, Louisiana and Hanford, Washington. The first and most anticipated discovery..>> view originalHubble captures image of 'blue bubble' in space
Sparkling at the centre of this beautiful NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is a Wolf–Rayet star known as WR 31a, located about 30,000 light-years away.(Photo: ESA/Hubble & NASA. Acknowledgemen)NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope recently captured a stunning image of a "blue bubble" surrounding a star in space.What looks like a hazy blue circle is actually a cloud of dust, hydrogen, helium and other gases, surrounding the Wolf-Rayet star, WR 31a, according to the European Space Agency.The star is ..>> view originalMonarch butterflies on the rebound
Monarch butterflies are on the rebound after years of population decline, according to a new report. The latest population counts show a 255 percent increase over last year in the wintering habitat area Monarchs occupy, officials said Friday. Wintering butterflies covered about 10 acres of habitat in Mexico this year, compared to about 2.8 acres the year prior, according to a news release from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The butterflies embark on a two month long migratory path from ..>> view originalOldest Nervous System Found in 520-Million-Year-Old Fossil
Fossils of an ancient creature resembling a shrimp with an armored head contain the oldest and best-preserved nervous system ever found, which could help scientists decipher the evolution of nervous systems in animals alive today, according to a new study. The remarkable remains belonged to Chengjiangocaris kunmingensis, a crustaceanlike creature that lived 520 million years ago in what is now South China. The fossils revealed a long "ropelike" central nerve cord that extended throughout the bod..>> view originalScientists reveal one weird trick for finding aliens
Maybe a team effort is the best way to search for aliens. That is, teaming up with the extraterrestrials themselves.A new study suggests that perhaps we should be looking for aliens who are looking for us in the hope of finding each other and communicating.The idea is to flip our current apprach around. NASA's Kepler spacecraft has discovered more than 1,000 exoplanets by watching for the light of a star to dim as an orbiting planet passes by. Scientists now suggest that we target worlds that c..>> view originalDusty dinosaur bone sheds new light on perplexing giant predators
After discovering a discarded dinosaur bone in the dusty drawer of an Italian museum, researchers have published new insights into the predatory – yet surprisingly endearing – Abelisaur.The study, published Monday in the journal Peer J, also wades into the murky waters of Stromer’s Riddle, formulated in the 1930s by German paleontologist Ernst Stromer, which asks how so many different top dinosaur predators could have coexisted.The work also highlights one of the understated services provided b..>> view originalSpaceX to launch rocket today? After 3 attempts in the last week, it's trying again
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket waits on the launch pad Sunday at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. (Craig Bailey / Florida Today) Elon Musk’s SpaceX will try again to launch a commercial communications satellite into orbit Tuesday afternoon -- the fourth attempt in the last week. The launch of the Hawthorne-based company's Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled for 3:35 p.m. PST at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The satellite, SES-9, would provide services such as broadcasting and v..>> view originalReturn to Earth: An Astronaut's View of Coming Home
European lights seen by AndrĂŠ Kuipers from space. Credit: ESA/NASA Leroy Chiao served as a NASA astronaut from 1990 to 2005. During his 15-year career, he flew four missions into space, three times on space shuttles and once as the co-pilot of a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station. On that flight, he served as the commander of Expedition 10, a six-and-a-half-month mission. Chiao has performed six spacewalks, in both U.S. and Russian spacesuits, and has logged near..>> view original
Tuesday, March 1, 2016
In emergencies, people place too much trust in robots and other top stories.
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