Monday 19 January 2015

Hubble iPad case

Here's a great iPad case from Zazzle featuring a Hubble-related design. Maybe you'd like to see your name on it? Click to personalize and see what it's like!


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Hubble

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NASA Spacecraft Get a Closer Look at Pluto and Ceres, Whatever They May Be

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Two NASA spacecraft will soon have a closer look at Pluto and Ceres, whatever one considers them.















via New York Times

Mysteries of ‘molecular machines’ revealed

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Scientists are making it easier for pharmaceutical companies and researchers to see the detailed inner workings of molecular machines.

The post Mysteries of ‘molecular machines’ revealed has been published on Technology Org.

 
#materials 
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Dawn spacecraft delivers new image of dwarf planet Ceres

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As NASA's Dawn spacecraft closes in on Ceres, new images show the dwarf planet at 27 pixels across, about three times better than the calibration images taken in early December. These are the first in a series of images that will be taken for navigation purposes during the approach to Ceres.

via Science Daily

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Vintage Astronomy Star Chart Planisphaeri Coeleste Posters

Here's a great poster featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: historian, maps, travel, old, world, decor, fine art, art, history, geography, panoramic, vintage map, vintage maps, antique map, antique maps, ancient, ancient maps, old world, historic, historical, ancient history, artwork, vintage artwork, vintage art, framed prints, framed posters, framed art, canvas, travel posters, vintage travel, antique travel, room decor, wall decor, den decor, vamp, the vintage vamp, thevintagevamp

A wonderful antique star chart depicting the constellations titled Planispaeri Coeleste This wonderful old constellation chart would be perfect for your home wall decor. Add a frame and it would make the perfect retro decoration in your bar, cafe, restaurant, home theater, office or kitchen. Framed canvas prints also make an exceptional gift for any occasion or holiday.

At The Vintage Vamp we obtain high quality images of vintage artwork. Then we use state of the art technology and editing to bring back to life the most compelling images from the past. Unlike a lot of reproductions sold on the Internet, ours have been refurbished to bring out the original colors and fix as many imperfections as possible. We use only PNG format and the largest PPI (pixels per inch) possible, which is the very best for printing. This assures that your image will print with the highest quality possible, no matter what size you choose. Credit: Library of Congress & Wikipedia




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After Kepler, what is next for the planet hunters?

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At the winter meeting of the American Astronomical Society earlier this month, the NASA Kepler Space Telescope team announced its 1,000th discovery of a planet outside our solar system. This brings the total number of confirmed exoplanets to 1,795, with a staggering additional 4,000 possibilities also located by Kepler. Twenty years ago we had no proof our planetary system was not unique in the universe. Kepler taught us we are one of thousands.



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How to beat a polygraph

Science Focus

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Judging by Doug Williams' business website, it doesn't look like he thought he had anything to hide. On Polygraph.com, Williams, a former officer with the Oklahoma City Police Department turned anti-polygraph activist, promises to teach you how to prepare for (read: beat) a polygraph test — through his how-to manual, DVD, and personal training sessions. He frames his pitch as selling to a very nervous truth-teller, rather than to a liar, writing on his site: "Remember, just telling the truth only works about 50 percent of the time — so to protect yourself from being falsely accused of lying, you must learn how to pass!"

Nevertheless, a grand jury in Oklahoma decided that there is enough evidence that Williams is doing more harm than helping innocent people calm their nerves. In November, Williams was charged with multiple counts of mail fraud and witness tampering, for allegedly showing people how to lie and hide crimes in order to get security-clearance-level jobs with the federal government. Williams calls the charges against him an "attack on his First Amendment rights," and says that he's only being targeted because he is a vocal critic of a method that is "no more accurate than the toss of a coin in determining whether a person is telling the truth or lying."

On the accuracy aspect at least, he's got a point. In United States v. Scheffer, in 1989, the Supreme Court ruled that a judge could reject polygraph results in criminal cases, citing a general lack of scientific consensus as to their reliability. Many state and federal courts now consider them inadmissible as evidence. But it's a decision that's still up to individual judges. And even in places where polygraph tests may not be admissible in court, some branches of law enforcement still believe that they have other, non-prosecutorial value.

For instance, studies have shown that a polygraph can have a kind of placebo effect — that it can elicit new information from people who hadn't been fully cooperating before, who now feel that they have no choice but to come clean. In a majority of jurisdictions, cops and parole officers also use regular polygraph tests to keep post-conviction sex offenders accountable for their actions; researchers have suggested that the process alone discourages recidivism, whether or not the results are 100 percent accurate. (Other researchers disagree.)

But aside from those legal uses, it was the job-screening use of the polygraph that likely sparked federal prosecutors' interest in Williams' case. Last year, McClatchy reported on an unprecedented secret federal investigation of other polygraph instructors like Williams; Chad Dixon was sentenced to eight months in prison after pleading guilty to similar charges. Marisa Taylor and Cleve R. Wootson Jr. wrote, "The criminal inquiry, which hasn't been acknowledged publicly, is aimed at discouraging criminals and spies from infiltrating the U.S. government by using the polygraph-beating techniques."

It's probably worth remembering that news of the investigation came out in September 2013, after the "Summer of Snowden," a series of revelations that set the entire government reeling. A former National Security Agency employee, Russell Tice, told U.S. News & World Report that the agency regularly subjects its agents to polygraph tests, but that he and his colleagues had figured out how to pass every time. (Tips include biting your tongue to spike the sensors' output, and then visualizing cool beers on warm summer nights to reduce them.)

In their article for McClatchy, Taylor and Wootson also described the polygraph-prep instructors' methods, "which are said to include controlled breathing, muscle tensing, tongue biting, and mental arithmetic." The overall goal of the preparation process is to teach people to control the otherwise involuntary physical stress responses that the polygraph's sensors pick up on during the interview. Or, as Williams himself summed up quite simply in a recent tweet: "The polygraph operator monitors your respiration, GSR, & cardio. Get nervous on the wrong question & he calls you a liar!"

Many criminologists now believe that "getting nervous" shouldn't indicate a guilty conscience, and that consistent story-telling is a much better indicator of the truth. Psychologists are currently testing new techniques that "induce cognitive load" as potentially more accurate ways to weed out the lies. It takes more brainpower to keep an invented story consistent than it does to tell the truth, the theory goes. So interrogators can try to overwhelm their subjects with information, questions, and tasks, and see how flustered they get.

One review of the research explores methods like having the person draw the scene being described, tell the story in reverse-chronological order, describe the scene in detail from the perspective of a different physical vantage point, and even complete math problems in the middle of the interview. Even being made to maintain constant eye contact occupies the mind, so that can also make it more difficult for a liar to stay on message.

It's hard to say which interrogation method is harder for a liar to beat — manipulating subtle physiological blips, or keeping a complicated story straight while looking the examiner right in the eye and doing long division at the same time. But maybe it's also worth trying the simple, natural, low-tech option that's always been a recourse for liars everywhere: mock surprise. According to Doug Williams' indictment, one undercover agent apparently asked him what to do during the polygraph if he was asked about whether he had had any polygraph training. As in, should he lie about that? Williams apparently responded, "Look at them with an astounded look on your face…reverse it on him."

Pacific Standard grapples with the nation's biggest issues by illuminating why we do what we do. For more on the science of society, sign up for its weekly email update or subscribe to its bimonthly print magazine.

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 » see original post http://theweek.com/articles/441711/beat-polygraph
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In China, for China

Science Focus

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Generically, GE calls its R&D facilities "research centers." But the Shanghai one is called the China Technology Center. The company spokespeople also talk a lot about the center's "in China, for China" approach, which basically means that the goal of the work there is to develop technology that fits the needs of the local market.

It's easy to dismiss all this as a bit of marketing speak—at least until you talk to the researchers. There's really an awareness on their part of doing work that makes the end results relevant for China.

To give one example, China's best energy resources, both renewable and fossil fuels, are in the country's west; lots of its people and industry are in the east. So, one of the projects mentioned was work on direct-current transmission lines, which are more efficient for shifting electrons over long distances.

Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

 
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 » see original post http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/science/~3/bkrpdw8Mcb4/
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New law for superconductors

Science Focus

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MIT researchers have discovered a new mathematical relationship — between material thickness, temperature, and electrical resistance — that

The post New law for superconductors has been published on Technology Org.

 
#physics 
 » see original post http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TechnologyOrgPhysicsNews/~3/zCJfsTdW-CM/
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Extremely short, sharp flash of radio waves from unknown source in the universe, caught as it was happening

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A strange phenomenon has been observed by astronomers right as it was happening -- a 'fast radio burst'. The eruption is described as an extremely short, sharp flash of radio waves from an unknown source in the universe.

via Science Daily

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Tarantula Nebula Star Forming Gas Cloud Sculpture Star Sticker

Here's a great sheet of stickers featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: envelope sealers, tnlmcsfr, billowing interstellar gas clouds, awesome hubble images, tarantula nebula, large magellanic cloud, star forming activity, young hot stars, star nurseries, triggering star formation

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series An awesome mobile phone shell featuring the Tarantula Nebula of the Large Magellanic Cloud, which is the nearest galaxy to the Milky Way, our galactic home. This Hubble image shows old stars from the distant past and rich, interstellar gas clouds feeding the formation of new ones. The most massive and hottest stars are intense, high-energy radiation sources and this pushes away what remains of the gas and dust, compressing and sculpting it. As the whorls and eddies clump and stretch it, gravity takes over and the birth of the next generation of new stars is triggered.

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image code: tnlmcsfr

Image credit: NASA, the Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI) and ESA

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Infrared Orion from WISE

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The effect of starlight on the atmospheres of mini-Neptunes

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Exoplanet surveys have discovered the first planets with sizes between 2 and 3.5 Earth radii—slightly smaller than the size of the planet Neptune in our solar system. These planets, dubbed "mini-Neptunes," have been spotted so far around five low mass stars, but since low mass stars are the most common stars in the universe, and since mini-Neptunes are also expected to be abundant around them, astronomers anticipate finding many more mini-Neptunes in the near future.



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High-speed jets from a possible new class of galaxy

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Seyfert galaxies are similar to spiral galaxies except that they have extraordinarily prominent, bright nuclei, sometimes as luminous as 100 billion Suns. Their huge energies are thought to be generated as matter falls towards a central supermassive black hole and accretes onto a circumnuclear disk around it. Observations distinguish between two types of Seyferts: those whose nuclear emission appears to be slightly obscured, thought to be the result of viewing the galaxy edge-on through an obscuring disk, and those seen face-on.



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A stormy shape-shifter

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Space Science Image of the Week: ESA’s Venus Express spacecraft snapped this image in 2007 of a rapidly shape-shifting vortex at Venus’ south pole

via ESA Space Science

http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2015/01/Venus_Express_snaps_swirling_vortex

Horsehead Nebula Room Decal

Here's a great wall decal featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: horsehead nebula, dark nebula, nebulae, space, astronomy, space exploration, universe, cosmic, milky way galaxy, outer space

A reproduction of a composite colour image of the Horsehead Nebula (also known as Barnard 33 in emission nebula IC 434) and its immediate surroundings. It's based on three exposures in the visual part of the spectrum with the FORS2 multi-mode instrument at the 8.2-m KUEYEN telescope at Paranal. The Horsehead Nebula is a dark nebula in the constellation Orion. The nebula is located just to the south of the star Alnitak, which is farthest west on Orion's Belt, and is part of the much larger Orion Molecular Cloud Complex. The nebula was first recorded in 1888 by Williamina Fleming.
Credit: ESO

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Hubble Speak Case for iPad Cover For The iPad Mini

Here's a great iPad case from Zazzle featuring a Hubble-related design. Maybe you'd like to see your name on it? Click to personalize and see what it's like!


Hubble

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Atom-thick CCD could capture images: Scientists develop two-dimensional, light-sensitive material

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An atomically thin material developed at Rice University may lead to the thinnest-ever imaging platform. Synthetic two-dimensional materials

The post Atom-thick CCD could capture images: Scientists develop two-dimensional, light-sensitive material has been published on Technology Org.

 
#materials 
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Star Birth in Constellation Cygnus, The Swan Star Sticker

Here's a great sheet of stickers featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: envelope sealers, star clusters, nebulae, gstlnrsr, rcw120, breathtaking astronomy images, star nurseries, inspirational stars, ionised gas clouds, starfields, galaxies, eso, european southern observatory, vista

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A gorgeous star forming region in Constellation Cygnus (The Swan). This Hubble image shows a dust-rich, interstellar gas cloud with a new-born star in the centre of the hour-glass shape. The glowing blue of the hydrogen in this nebula is due to the jets being emitted from the forming star as dust falls into into it and this causes the heating and turbulence of the hydrogen. The star, known as S106 IR, is reaching the end of its birth and will soon enter the much quieter period of adulthood known as the main stage.

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Image code: cygsb

Image credit: NASA, the Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI) and ESA

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Crab Nebula Wall Decal

Here's a great wall decal featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: crab nebula, supernova, remnant, pulsar, wind nebula, nebulae, space, astronomy, universe

The Crab Nebula is a supernova remnant and pulsar wind nebula in the constellation of Taurus.

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