Slashdot Mirror

Matthew Sparkes writes "The New Horizons spacecraft has taken the closest ever photos of Jupiter's Little Red Spot, which is actually a storm the size of Earth which has been raging since 2005. New Horizons targeted the storm when it passed Jupiter to gain speed for its journey to Pluto. The source of the red hue remains an open question. Some scientists believe hurricane-like winds lift material from beneath Jupiter's cloud-tops up to an altitude where radiation from the Sun can chemically alter it, producing the red colour. Scientists have estimated that winds in the storm were whipping around the atmosphere at 180 metres per second."

Matthew Sparkes writes "This article is a list of the best nano-scale artworks. It includes a 15 micron wide badger, a ten micron long guitar (which was actually played) and a 120 micron long New Scientist logo. Of course these are the images that got released to the press. In labs around the world people must have used their bleeding-edge technologies to make structures just to impress their friends. I wonder how many scientists' significant others have received nano-Valentines on Feb 14th?"

Matthew Sparkes writes "NASA will likely shut down its Institute for Advanced Concepts, which funds research into futuristic ideas in spaceflight and aeronautics. The move highlights the budget problems the agency is facing as it struggles to retire the space shuttles and develop a replacement. The institute receives $4 million per year from NASA, whose annual budget is $17 billion. Most of that is used to fund research into innovative technologies; recent grants include the conceptual development of spacecraft that could surf the solar system on magnetic fields, motion-sensitive spacesuits that could generate power and tiny, spherical robots that could explore Mars."

Matthew Sparkes writes "Astronauts living on the Moon will need lots of water, oxygen and other resources that can be extracted from the lunar soil. Collecting this in a mechanical way could throw up lots of dust that could harm equipment and astronauts health, as well as ruining the view. The answer may be to create a flexible tube with magnetic coils spaced at regular intervals along its length that could suck up the iron-heavy dust. The research was presented on Thursday at the Lunar and Planetary Society Conference in Houston, Texas. Another study suggests burying lunar habitats with packaged moon dust could help regulate their temperature. On the airless Moon, the surface bakes to over 100 Celsius during the day and plunges to a frigid -150 C at night."

Matthew Sparkes writes "In theory, quantum computers can be superior to classical computers for some kinds of problems; in practice their building blocks, qubits, are extremely fragile. Even a slight knock can destroy information. A radical solution to this problem was proposed in the 80's — instead of storing qubits in properties of particles, such as an electron's spin, it was suggested that qubits could be encoded into properties shared by the whole material, and so would be harder to disrupt. Unfortunately, no material with the needed properties existed. Scientists now think they have made a material in the lab, thought to be an example of a new state of matter, that might do the trick. It's an ultra-purified form of a mineral, herbertsmithite, first discovered in Chile in 1972. Its electrons are arranged in a triangular lattice. Researchers say it could become the silicon of the quantum computing era."

Matthew Sparkes writes "NASA has created two virtual flyovers of the Mars rover landing sites using 3D imagery from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (New Scientist story here). The images were made using the most powerful camera ever sent to another planet, MRO's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE). The three-dimensional information is obtained by taking pairs of images from slightly different vantage points as the spacecraft orbits the Red Planet."

Matthew Sparkes writes "GPS doesn't work underwater, as the signal cannot reach the satellite from a submersible, but researchers have now patented an add-on to the system that could provide GPS navigation for submarines. A base station is tethered to the sea bed at a known depth and GPS location. A submersible anywhere in the area sends out a sonar pulse to which the base station replies with a signal, giving a GPS position and depth as well as the bearing angle from which the submersible's request arrived. The submersible then uses its own depth, which is easily measured, plus the round trip pulse time and the bearing angle sent by the base, to calculate its own position."

Matthew Sparkes writes "A new technique could take a simple body scan and allow a user to upload it and use it as an avatar or game character. Previously an animator would have to create a skeleton inside the model and describe movement capabilities manually. In tests, an inexperienced user could produce the animations in less than 15 minutes."

Matthew Sparkes writes "Two prototype antennas for the world's largest array of millimeter-wave telescopes have passed a key test, working to track and image Saturn for more than an hour. Ultimately, ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) is expected to resolve details 10 times finer than the Hubble Space Telescope when it is completed in 2012."

Matthew Sparkes writes "Launched 35 years ago on Friday, Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to reach the outer Solar System and return pictures of Jupiter, closely followed by Pioneer 11. However, the twin Pioneer spacecraft drifted off course (see number 8) by hundreds of thousands of kilometres during their three-decade mission, and NASA eventually lost contact with them. An international team of scientists, including many amatuer hobbyists, are re-analysing the tracking and telemetry data in the hope of discovering the reason."

MattSparkes writes "PCBs from discarded computers, cellphones and other devices could be recycled less harmfully using a technique developed by researchers in China. Unlike current methods, it can be used to reclaim metals such as copper without releasing toxic fumes into the air. Only a small numbers of PCBs are currently recycled."

MattSparkes writes "The Shuttles March launch has been delayed to late April after golf-ball sized hail caused 7000 pits and divots in the foam that shields the fuel tank. NASA say it's the worst damage of its kind that they have ever seen, but hail is not a new problem for the agency. In 1982, a hailstorm damaged the sensitive heat shield tiles on the Columbia's wings. The damaged tiles then absorbed about 540 kilograms of rain. Once in space, the orbiter faced the Sun to allow the tiles to dry out."

MattSparkes writes "The 'Superbot', a modular robot that transforms itself into different shapes in order to walk, crawl and clamber up inclines, has been demonstrated in at the University of Southern California. Each bot module is effectively a robot in its own right, and can move independently, flip over and rotate like wheels. They also have 3D accelerometers that let them know their precise orientation. The six sides of each module can dock with any other module. Once connected, the modules can communicate, coordinate shape changes and even transmit power. The bot's creators hope it will make a great working companion for places like, say, the Moon. Or Mars."

MattSparkes writes "The Mars rover Spirit used to get quite confused when it came upon a rock. Because it could only plan routes of a metre or two it couldn't understand how to navigate around large objects, and frequently used to rock back and forth for hours trying to figure it out. NASA have written new software called D* for the rover Opportunity, which should allow it to autonomously plan routes up to 50 metres long. The new software still won't be able to avoid sand-traps, though."

MattSparkes writes "Two residents of the International Space Station will take a spacewalk tomorrow to try to jam a stuck antenna on a docked cargo ship back into place. The spacewalk will set a US record of over 65 hours spacewalk experience. During the spacewalk, the astronauts will "use a hammer and a chisel to try to pound the antenna into place". Precision engineering at its very best I'm sure you'll agree."

MattSparkes writes to tell us that NewScientist recently posted a quick look at five interesting materials with some very strange properties. There are liquids you can walk on, liquids that will escape containers by creeping up the sides, and magnetic liquids that can easily show you the shape of magnetic fields. The story also offers video links to display some of more amazing properties described.

MattSparkes writes, "Creating a layer of bubbles underneath a ship's hull could improve fuel efficiency by 20%. When you consider that 90% of the world's goods are transported by sea, the importance of this discovery is obvious. 'Conjured up from thin air at the flick of a switch, this slippery blanket will help transport a fully laden tanker or container ship across the ocean at higher speed, and using far less fuel, than ever before... There is currently no other technique in naval architecture that can promise such savings.'" The article looks in some detail at the engineering problems that will need to be overcome before this technique is practical.

MattSparkes writes "According to New Scientist, water could be cleansed and filtered more easily and cheaply by using old tires. From the article: 'Rubber tires, the kind that lie at the bottom of rivers and at the back of junkyards the world over, could be ideal water filters says an environmental engineer at Penn State University in the US.'"

MattSparkes writes "New Scientist is running an article on lifestyle drugs that claim to help you function on little or no sleep. I'm dubious, but the interviewee in the article claims they work well. 'Yves (not his real name), a 31-year-old software developer from Seattle, often doesn't have time for a full night's sleep. So he swallows something to make sure he doesn't need one.'" But, sleep is where I'm a Viking!

MattSparkes writes "The International Space Station is home to an increasing amount of unwanted goods, and NASA has just approved a policy where these could be thrown out of the door into space. 'Tools and other gear have accidentally floated away during spacewalks. But NASA has shied away from intentionally jettisoning gear off the ISS in the past because of the threat of space junk hitting the station or other spacecraft.' The loosening of the rules on this comes just as Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin is about to take a space walk where he will hit a golf ball from the ISS in a promotional stunt for a golf company."

MattSparkes writes, "The Chinese GPS system, Beidou, is apparently to be opened up for free access within China, worrying European investors on the €2.5 billion competing project, Galileo. Initially, China had declared that access to their system would be restricted to the military, and Europe had planned to recoup some of the cost of their system by selling licenses to China. Michael Shaw, from the US government's National Space-based Positioning, Navigation and Timing Coordination Office in Washington DC, said, 'Frankly, China's behavior towards Europe is not so different to how Europe behaved with us when GPS was the only game in town a decade ago.'"

Two Web 2.0 companies' acquisitions were announced today: JotSpot by Google, and Reddit by Wired. hpcanswers writes, "Google has bought JotSpot, a maker of wiki software. From the linked FAQ: 'Google shares JotSpot's vision for helping people collaborate, share, and work together online. JotSpot's team and technology are a strong fit with existing Google products like Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Google Apps for Your Domain, and Google Groups.' The purchase price has not been disclosed." Coverage of the JotSpot deal is everywhere; Cnet's and the AP's are thorough. And MattSparkes writes, "The user-generated news site Reddit has been bought out by Wired's parent, Condé Nast, for an undisclosed sum. As the great big Web 2.0 bubble continues to inflate towards the popping point, and Boston sees a few more young millionaires move west, who will we see bought out next?"

MattSparkes writes "The first UN-sponsored Internet Governance Forum (IGF) meeting is taking place next week in Athens, which aims to 'contribute to a better understanding of how the internet can be used to its full potential.' It is likely that several countries will object to the US monopoly on Internet governance, as they did at the last meeting, where the US cited fears of a loss of freedom of speech as the reason for retaining power. Other topics to be discussed include online security, access for non-English users and spam."

MattSparkes writes "Smart surveillance systems could identify crimes as they take place, if a computer vision system developed at the University of Texas goes into production. The system is capable of classifying behaviour as friendly or violent. In the past there have been attempts to spot unusual behaviour, but this required subsequent user classification. These new systems may keep us more secure, but is it worth sacrificing our privacy for? And will we see false positives, where police cars screech to a halt beside hugging couples?"

MattSparkes writes "Researchers claim to have produced software that automatically generates timely video news bulletins, presented by computer-animated characters, which could revolutionise current affairs broadcasting. The system, called News at Seven, takes RSS news feeds and does some formatting before passing it to an avatar from Half-Life 2 to read out. Based on keywords, the system also draws in video from YouTube and images from Flickr to supplement the speech."

MattSparkes writes, "Today's quantum computers are not sophisticated enough to do anything malicious to your online bank account; the field is in its infancy. However, there are in theory more ways to attack quantum computers than classical ones. As quantum networking takes off, this is going to become a larger and more immediate problem." The Wikipedia article correctly identifies as an unsolved problem in physics the question of whether it is possible to construct a practical computer that performs calculations on qubits.

MattSparkes writes "For the second year in a row, no team has won the $200,000 prize in the Space Elevator Challenge at the Wirefly X Prize Cup. Three teams were disqualified before the contest even started. Another competition at the event has been held up by confusion. Incredibly, it seems the organisers of the competition are not sure whether the ribbon used was 50 or 60 metres long, and whether any team completed the climb fast enough to win."

MattSparkes writes, "A new study funded by the US Air Force has suggested a cheaper method of sending satellites (possibly missile weapons) into orbit. A 2-km-wide ring of superconducting magnets would contain and propel a payload, accelerating it over a period of hours, before suddenly flinging the satellite into space at 23 times the speed of sound. The satellites would be engineered to withstand the g-forces encountered (2,000 g), and be cased in an aerodynamic shell. A two-year study has been commisioned and will begin within a few weeks at LaunchPoint Technologies in Goleta, California." New Scientist points out that if such a launch ring were built, it would instantly become "one of the most important targets on the planet."

MattSparkes writes, "A Minnesota company, VeraTech, has applied for a patent on an unmanned drone that is nearly invisible to the naked eye. The Phantom Sentinel takes advantage of the phenomenon where fast moving objects appear as only a blur, so it fades out of view once it speeds up. This is achieved by rotating the entire craft. The center of gravity is in open air between two of the blade-like wings. There are some videos of a prototype in action on the VeraTech site." The company says you could get usable video of the terrain by processing the images from a spinning camera. One version of the drone is small enough to launch by throwing it like a boomerang. And it folds for travel.

MattSparkes writes "Slashdot reported earlier this week that the first ever zero gravity surgery was to take place. Today the team of doctors successfully carried out the operation, removing a benign tumour from the forearm of a 46-year-old volunteer. "Now we know that a human being can be operated on in space without too many difficulties," team leader Dominique Martin said after the flight. The studies show that minor surgery is possible even during long-term inhabitation of space."