Between peak oil and global recession, what makes them think air traffic will increase at all?
It's time for people to wake up: we've come to the limit of our conquer-and-consume growth economy. It's all downhill from here.
Simple: when the shuttle's done at the station, detach and intercept the bag in orbit. Voila, $100k saved.
They could think of it as a drill for retrieving an astronaut who floats away during a spacewalk.
If they say it uses the same power as "three lightbulbs" it probably means the worst possible case, 300 watts. Good luck powering that with a solar panel.
I wonder if this discovery had been made a few months earlier if they would have altered the course of the Phoenix lander to try to touch down on the glacier. Or is the crust on top of the glacier too thick for Phoenix to get through? This seems like a prime target for future missions to analyze the ice and look for signs of life.
I think we need to send Bruce Willis and a crack team of oil rig workers to do some drilling on Mars...
Deep Space refers to anything outside of Earth orbit. The EPOXI probe (previously called Deep Impact) is orbiting the Sun, not the Earth, so is definitely in deep space.
The distinction is useful because most earth-orbiting satellites can be communicated with using relatively small antennas, whereas deep space probes are orders of magnitude farther away and require a network of much larger dishes (ie, the Deep Space Network).
I'm the author of Brain Workshop, an implementation of Suzanne Jaeggi's Dual N-Back task. The scientific basis of the dual n-back task differentiates it from regular Brain Age-type games. I highly encourage everyone to try it out. There is currently more research underway to confirm the positive effects on short term memory and fluid intelligence.
Brain Workshop works on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux and is completely free.
Interesting that the posttest was only a day after daily training ended - is there any evidence that these effects are lasting?
Not yet - hopefully this question will be answered through additional research.
Even if it turned out to be a short-lasting effect, I would still add it to my daily routine to maintain a high level of mental fitness (along with physical exercise, good food & adequate rest).
Brain Workshop -- a free, GPL brain game (downloads available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux).
It could be called a memory game, mental challenge or puzzle. It's been shown in a peer-reviewed study to improve working memory and fluid intelligence (one component of "IQ"). This is huge because intelligence was previously thought to be static or immutable.
More research is currently underway at multiple universities to confirm the positive effect on fluid intelligence. You can see the results for yourself by practicing this game 20 minutes 4-5 times a week for a few weeks.
This could be hitting the front page of your morning paper in a few months once more research is published.
Speaking of game related education, a 2008 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that a particular memory task, called Dual N-Back, may actually improve working memory (short term memory) and fluid intelligence (gF). This is an important finding because fluid intelligence was previously thought to be unchangeable. The game involves remembering a sequence of spoken letters and a sequence of positions of a square at the same time.
Determinism breaks apart once you reach the subatomic level. Quantum events are completely random, or at least not influenced by anything in this universe. They are also non-computable (ie, it's impossible to precisely simulate the outcome of a quantum event using any computer, no matter how powerful). If we can show that quantum effects are important in the functioning of the nervous system, this would demonstrate its non-deterministic nature.
If they're going to the trouble of launching a rocket to intercept the satellite, why don't they build a small booster which could attach to the satellite and perform a controlled de-orbit? This would allow them to choose the point of re-entry to protect whatever secrets may be on board.
There is far too much space junk up there already. Blowing the satellite into a million pieces doesn't seem like the smartest thing to do. I suspect the US simply wants to demonstrate and test its own anti-satellite system.
Unless they are identical twins I don't think you can assume your two children both started off with equal potential. You are assuming the difference in reading ability is caused by time spent playing educational games, but the cause could just as likely be something else (intelligence? another influence?) which is affecting both reading ability and the desire to play computer games.
The Super-Autocomplete dropdown is disturbing. I'll be typing something into the URL bar trying to show my mom a web site and I'll see a few porn site entries flash by in large type and with kinky icons. The older list was much more discreet.
At our current level of technology it would take our entire economy decades or centuries to produce a colony ship (if we last that long), but interstellar colonization needn't be so resource-intensive if you extrapolate a few technological trends.
Picture a small probe with some nano-factories onboard which could set up a base once it reaches a suitable planet orbiting another star. The probe has some biological or nanotech agents which can terraform a planet over many thousands of years. Once the planet is ready the cryogenically frozen humans are awoken, who then begin to thaw out a couple thousand frozen embryos which grow into children.
If we really are the first intelligent beings in the universe, perhaps it's our duty to fill the universe with life. We could design life forms to live in any environment imaginable such as within comets or on the moons of the outer planets. If we become sufficiently adept at genetic engineering we could even customize groups of "humans" to live anywhere.
Have you ever wondered why we haven't encountered intelligent life forms other than ourselves? An advanced race with regular slower-than-light starships would be able to colonize an entire galaxy within a few million years (barely an instant on a geological timescale). One possible explanation for our apparent solitude in the universe is that the number of planets with the proper conditions for developing life is vanishingly small. (Read about the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox for other possibilities)
For example Earth's moon creates tides (and tide pools) and stabilizes the earth's seasons and axial tilt. According to the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_impact_hypothesis the Moon was created as a result of a chance collision between the proto-earth and a Mars-sized object. Without the presence of the Moon the conditions might have been too harsh to support life.
As we learn more about how the solar system formed we will be better able to predict which stars might have life-bearing planets, so we can begin our own colonization of the galaxy (assuming humans can survive long enough to overcome war, disease and ecological destruction).
You need about 7 km/s to reach orbit, which is above Mach 25. You could have rockets which would kick in at the maximum altitude of the scramjet to give the final push to orbit.
That means that therefore a poor driver, who can't safely drive faster than the speed limit now has two choices:
going faster than the speed limit and endangering everybody else
not going faster than the speed limit and being a safety hasard, in other words endangering everybody else
Good point:) I'm now convinced that the safest thing is for everyone to drive the limit, regardless of skill level. It's unfortunate that safety is not high on many people's priority lists. Perhaps a good strategy would be to point out the fuel efficiency benefit of slower driving.
The truth is, the posted speed limits are set low enough that even poor drivers are relatively harmless to others. A skilled driver will be able to drive faster than the speed limit without endangering anybody.
Another thing is, if everyone is going 15 mph above the limit and there's one guy who insists on going exactly the limit, that person is creating a safety hazard as everyone tries to pass him.
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Between peak oil and global recession, what makes them think air traffic will increase at all? It's time for people to wake up: we've come to the limit of our conquer-and-consume growth economy. It's all downhill from here.
Nothing's impossible - haven't you seen Apollo 13?
Simple: when the shuttle's done at the station, detach and intercept the bag in orbit. Voila, $100k saved. They could think of it as a drill for retrieving an astronaut who floats away during a spacewalk.
If they say it uses the same power as "three lightbulbs" it probably means the worst possible case, 300 watts. Good luck powering that with a solar panel.
I wonder if this discovery had been made a few months earlier if they would have altered the course of the Phoenix lander to try to touch down on the glacier. Or is the crust on top of the glacier too thick for Phoenix to get through? This seems like a prime target for future missions to analyze the ice and look for signs of life.
I think we need to send Bruce Willis and a crack team of oil rig workers to do some drilling on Mars...
Deep Space refers to anything outside of Earth orbit. The EPOXI probe (previously called Deep Impact) is orbiting the Sun, not the Earth, so is definitely in deep space.
The distinction is useful because most earth-orbiting satellites can be communicated with using relatively small antennas, whereas deep space probes are orders of magnitude farther away and require a network of much larger dishes (ie, the Deep Space Network).
I'm the author of Brain Workshop, an implementation of Suzanne Jaeggi's Dual N-Back task. The scientific basis of the dual n-back task differentiates it from regular Brain Age-type games. I highly encourage everyone to try it out. There is currently more research underway to confirm the positive effects on short term memory and fluid intelligence.
Brain Workshop works on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux and is completely free.
Join the Dual N-Back, Brain Training & Intelligence forum & mailing list for some interesting discussions.
What's to stop them from including a clause in their EULA allowing the installation of shadow DRM?
Interesting that the posttest was only a day after daily training ended - is there any evidence that these effects are lasting?
Not yet - hopefully this question will be answered through additional research.
Even if it turned out to be a short-lasting effect, I would still add it to my daily routine to maintain a high level of mental fitness (along with physical exercise, good food & adequate rest).
Brain Workshop -- a free, GPL brain game (downloads available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux).
It could be called a memory game, mental challenge or puzzle. It's been shown in a peer-reviewed study to improve working memory and fluid intelligence (one component of "IQ"). This is huge because intelligence was previously thought to be static or immutable.
More research is currently underway at multiple universities to confirm the positive effect on fluid intelligence. You can see the results for yourself by practicing this game 20 minutes 4-5 times a week for a few weeks.
This could be hitting the front page of your morning paper in a few months once more research is published.
Speaking of game related education, a 2008 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that a particular memory task, called Dual N-Back, may actually improve working memory (short term memory) and fluid intelligence (gF). This is an important finding because fluid intelligence was previously thought to be unchangeable. The game involves remembering a sequence of spoken letters and a sequence of positions of a square at the same time.
Read the original experimental study here.
There's a free open source version of the Dual N-Back task called Brain Workshop. Start practicing!
That's what the Super Back Button is for.
This could be the start of the back button arms race...
Determinism breaks apart once you reach the subatomic level. Quantum events are completely random, or at least not influenced by anything in this universe. They are also non-computable (ie, it's impossible to precisely simulate the outcome of a quantum event using any computer, no matter how powerful). If we can show that quantum effects are important in the functioning of the nervous system, this would demonstrate its non-deterministic nature.
Why not disassemble one of the thousands of plutonium warheads rusting away in warehouses?
If they're going to the trouble of launching a rocket to intercept the satellite, why don't they build a small booster which could attach to the satellite and perform a controlled de-orbit? This would allow them to choose the point of re-entry to protect whatever secrets may be on board.
There is far too much space junk up there already. Blowing the satellite into a million pieces doesn't seem like the smartest thing to do. I suspect the US simply wants to demonstrate and test its own anti-satellite system.
Unless they are identical twins I don't think you can assume your two children both started off with equal potential. You are assuming the difference in reading ability is caused by time spent playing educational games, but the cause could just as likely be something else (intelligence? another influence?) which is affecting both reading ability and the desire to play computer games.
The Super-Autocomplete dropdown is disturbing. I'll be typing something into the URL bar trying to show my mom a web site and I'll see a few porn site entries flash by in large type and with kinky icons. The older list was much more discreet.
At our current level of technology it would take our entire economy decades or centuries to produce a colony ship (if we last that long), but interstellar colonization needn't be so resource-intensive if you extrapolate a few technological trends.
Picture a small probe with some nano-factories onboard which could set up a base once it reaches a suitable planet orbiting another star. The probe has some biological or nanotech agents which can terraform a planet over many thousands of years. Once the planet is ready the cryogenically frozen humans are awoken, who then begin to thaw out a couple thousand frozen embryos which grow into children.
If we really are the first intelligent beings in the universe, perhaps it's our duty to fill the universe with life. We could design life forms to live in any environment imaginable such as within comets or on the moons of the outer planets. If we become sufficiently adept at genetic engineering we could even customize groups of "humans" to live anywhere.
Have you ever wondered why we haven't encountered intelligent life forms other than ourselves? An advanced race with regular slower-than-light starships would be able to colonize an entire galaxy within a few million years (barely an instant on a geological timescale). One possible explanation for our apparent solitude in the universe is that the number of planets with the proper conditions for developing life is vanishingly small. (Read about the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox for other possibilities)
For example Earth's moon creates tides (and tide pools) and stabilizes the earth's seasons and axial tilt. According to the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_impact_hypothesis the Moon was created as a result of a chance collision between the proto-earth and a Mars-sized object. Without the presence of the Moon the conditions might have been too harsh to support life.
As we learn more about how the solar system formed we will be better able to predict which stars might have life-bearing planets, so we can begin our own colonization of the galaxy (assuming humans can survive long enough to overcome war, disease and ecological destruction).
This might be a good place to land a Mars mission because you could use the ice to create oxygen, water, fuel etc.
You need about 7 km/s to reach orbit, which is above Mach 25. You could have rockets which would kick in at the maximum altitude of the scramjet to give the final push to orbit.
I doubt it actually gets deleted even if you do that. They keep a record of all changes to an account.
- going faster than the speed limit and endangering everybody else
- not going faster than the speed limit and being a safety hasard, in other words endangering everybody else
Good pointI'm now convinced that the safest thing is for everyone to drive the limit, regardless of skill level. It's unfortunate that safety is not high on many people's priority lists. Perhaps a good strategy would be to point out the fuel efficiency benefit of slower driving.
The truth is, the posted speed limits are set low enough that even poor drivers are relatively harmless to others. A skilled driver will be able to drive faster than the speed limit without endangering anybody.
Another thing is, if everyone is going 15 mph above the limit and there's one guy who insists on going exactly the limit, that person is creating a safety hazard as everyone tries to pass him.