134256937
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PolygamousRanchKid writes:
NASA's Doug Hurley and his crewmate Bob Behnken had a satellite phone at their disposal after splashdown on Sunday. At a press conference later that day, Hurley filled us in on what they did with their spare time as they floated around.
"Five hours ago we were in a spaceship bobbing around making prank satellite phone calls to whoever we could get ahold of," Hurley said. "Which was kind of fun, by the way." Hurley suggested the satellite phone bill should go to SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who was sitting nearby.
SpaceX's Crew Dragon successfully made it though the historic Demo-2 mission as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program. SpaceX and NASA hope to start regular operational missions to the ISS later this year.
That means there could be more prank calls incoming if this post-splashdown time-killer becomes a tradition for Crew Dragon astronauts. After blasting through space, you need to do something to unwind.
122980596
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PolygamousRanchKid writes:
We’ve already seen Samsung’s new rugged smartphone with a removable battery, the Galaxy XCover Pro, because the company revealed it on its Finnish website before taking it down. Today, though, the company is officially announcing the phone and that it’s coming to the US for $499.
For that price, you’re getting a phone with a swappable battery that’s a meaty 4,050mAh, and the phone even supports 15W fast charging, as well as with special docks that use pogo pins. The XCover Pro is intended to be used by workers in industrial settings or out in the field, so that huge battery should theoretically let workers use their phones for longer and give them the option to swap in a fresh battery in a pinch.
Otherwise, the phone’s specs are mid-range: a 6.3-inch AMOLED 2220 x 1080 display (which Samsung says you can use when you have gloves on), a 2GHz octa-core Exynos 9611 processor, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of internal storage (with support for microSD storage up to 512GB). For cameras, the phone has a 13-megapixel front-facing camera in a corner of the screen and two rear cameras: a 25-megapixel camera and an 8-megapixel camera.
122559994
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PolygamousRanchKid writes:
Impossible Foods, known for its meatless burgers, is launching plant-based pork. mpossible Pork debuts at tech conference CES in Las Vegas this week, and attendees will be able to taste the new product. Like the Impossible Burger, the plant-based pork is made with soy protein and is designed to look, taste and cook like real meat.
Much of the hype surrounding plant-based meat has been focused on beef substitutes.
But pork could be the next big thing because of the industry's ambitions in Asia, where African Swine Fever has devastated the pork supply. There's also an increasing demand for meat alternatives in the United States.
Impossible and its main competitor, Beyond Meat (BYND), both see huge opportunities for growth in Asia.
"In the next year or two, we're putting a lot of effort into expanding into international markets, particularly in Asia, where pork is the dominant meat product," Impossible CEO Pat Brown told CNN Business.
122089022
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PolygamousRanchKid writes:
After almost 350 years, physicists have just arrived at a statistical solution for Newton's three-body problem – that is, the problem of figuring out how three similar objects or bodies are going to travel in space in a way that fits in with the laws of motion and gravity. In particular, they looked at a couple of centuries of previous research that puts forward the following idea: in unstable, chaotic three-body systems, one of those bodies eventually gets expelled, leaving behind a stable binary relationship between the two that are left.
While the researchers point out that they haven't come up with an exact, complete solution for the three-body problem, they have developed a working statistical method that covers a lot of these three-body to two-body events, one which can be very useful in helping physicists visualize complicated processes.
While scientists have found fixes for special cases, a general formula for the three-body problem has proved elusive. It's like trying to apply a mathematical template to the butterfly effect – it's just too chaotic to track.
In this case, the researchers applied a probability hypothesis called ergodicity to help guide them to their answers, which uses the principles of averages to work out what's going to happen in a particular system. Importantly, over time, ergodic processes bear little relation to their original state (just like a three-body system).
120649582
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PolygamousRanchKid writes:
President Donald Trump said he wants a nationwide review of water efficiency standards because of issues with “sinks and showers and other elements of bathrooms” across the country. “People are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times as opposed to once. They end up using more water,” Trump said, continuing that the Environmental Protection Agency is "looking at" the issue at "his suggestion."
Trump said they're looking at "opening up the standard" of water-saving regulations, noting that "there may be some areas where we'll go the other route — desert areas. But for the most part, you have many states where they have so much water that it comes down — it's called rain — that they don't know, they don't know what to do with it."
"So we're going to be opening up that, I believe. And we're looking at changing the standards very soon," the president stated. Trump has been rolling back regulations since taking office, particularly taking aim at many environmental rules formed during the Obama administration.
120091356
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PolygamousRanchKid writes:
Everybody knows that rich-world inequality has soared. People read about it in newspapers, hear about it from pressure groups and witness it in their daily lives. On both sides of the Atlantic politicians are building action against it into their campaigns. Yet our cover this week examines new research that suggests this growing inequality is not what it appears. Our cover story delves deep into the national account economists use to tease out the income and wealth of the top 1%, and trends in average wages and in how owners outearn workers. In each case, the growth in inequality is either smaller than most people think or, possibly, absent. That many claims made about inequality are debatable does not reduce the urgency of tackling economic injustice. The rich world’s housing markets are starving young workers of cash and opportunity. America’s economy needs a giant dose of competition. Too many high-income workers, including doctors, lawyers and bankers, are protected. But good policy starts with good data.
119712854
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PolygamousRanchKid writes:
Essentially the entirety of physics centers on four forces that control our known, visible universe, governing everything from the production of heat in the sun to the way your laptop works. They are gravity, electromagnetism, the weak nuclear force, and the strong force. New research may be leading us closer to one more.
Scientists at the Institute for Nuclear Research at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (Atomki) have posted findings showing what could be an example of that fifth force at work.
The scientists were closely watching how an excited helium atom emitted light as it decayed. The particles split at an unusual angle, 115 degrees, which couldn't be explained by known physics.
The study's lead scientist, Attila Krasznahorkay, told CNN that this was the second time his team had detected a new particle, which they call X17, because they calculated its mass at 17 megaelectronvolts.
"X17 could be a particle, which connects our visible world with the dark matter," he said in an email.
Jonathan Feng, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Irvine, told CNN he's been following the Hungarian team's work for years, and believes their research is shaping up to be a game changer. "Some people said they screwed up," Feng said.
But he believed the Hungarians were for real. His research group published a paper on the heels of the Hungarians' 2016 work, laying out a theory to observe what Krasznahorkay's experimental team had seen. They referred to this unseen fifth force in action as a "photophobic force," meaning that it was as though the particles were "afraid of light." The only way to explain X17 was a hitherto undetected "fifth force."
"There's no reason to stop at the fifth," Feng said. "There could be a sixth, seventh, and eighth force."
118586220
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PolygamousRanchKid writes:
New anti-addiction guidelines for minors that set out limits for time and money spent on mobile games have been introduced by China’s state censor, following previous calls to curb excessive gaming. State media published the new rules on Tuesday, which introduced a stricter real-name registration system and, for the first time, an age rating system. The State Administration of Press and Publications (SAPP) guidelines also include limiting gaming to between 8am and 10pm, with no more than 1.5 hours each day – or three hours on holidays – and no more than 400 yuan (US$57) to be spent each month on in-game purchases.
SAPP said it was working with the Ministry of Public Security to build a central personal identification system for the gaming industry so companies could verify the identities and ages of users. Companies found to have broken the rules will face a range of penalties, including losing their games publishing licenses in the most severe cases.
“The guideline’s introduction and implementation will strengthen and improve the management of online games. It will protect the physical and mental health of minors and build a healthy internet environment,” a SAPP spokesman said, according to Xinhua.
118466560
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PolygamousRanchKid writes:
Silvia Galva, 32, was impaled by a spear-tipped bed post in a struggle with her boyfriend, Adam Reechard Crespo, at their Hallandale Beach home. Mr Crespo, 43, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder. He says her death was a tragic accident. Police want to establish if the smart-speaker, Alexa, recorded the dispute.
A police warrant obtained by US media says "audio recordings capturing the attack on victim Silvia Crespo... may be found on the server[s] maintained by or for Amazon.com". The major brands record and analyse snippets of audio internally to detect words like "Alexa", "Ok Google" or "Hey Siri", but if those words are not detected, the audio is discarded. If the wake word is said, however, then the audio is recorded and sent to the voice recognition service at the company.
118181054
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PolygamousRanchKid writes:
A new biography of former Defense Secretary James Mattis reports President Donald Trump personally got involved in who would win a major $10 billion contract to provide cloud computing services to the Pentagon, according to the website Task & Purpose, which writes about military issues. Task & Purpose reports the new book, "Holding The Line: Inside Trump's Pentagon with Secretary Mattis" by former Mattis speechwriter and communications director Guy Snodgrass recounts that Mattis always tried to translate Trump's demands into ethical outcomes.
According to Snodgrass' book, Trump called Mattis during summer 2018 and directed him to "screw Amazon" out of the opportunity to bid on the contract. For several years Trump has voiced his displeasure with Amazon and Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post.
In July, Trump vowed that his administration would take a "strong look" at the Pentagon's contract plan, saying that "some of the greatest companies in the world" had complained including IBM, Oracle and Microsoft.
Oracle had pushed hard to scuttle Amazon's effort, going so far as to develop a document alleging that officials inside and outside the Pentagon had conspired to help Amazon win. CNN reported in July that the document had made its way to Trump's desk.
Multiple independent reviews of the process found little evidence of wrongdoing, however.
115954684
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PolygamousRanchKid writes:
A federal minister announced on 2 September that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation would recognise Mr Modi for his government's efforts to end open defecation. The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, as it is known, or Clean India Mission, seeks to improve sanitation across the country by building tens of millions of toilets for the poor.
But the seemingly innocuous award has sparked scathing opinion pieces, the disapproval of at least three Nobel laureates, a petition by more than 100,000 people, and even rejection by celebrities — British Asian actors Jameela Jamil and Riz Ahmed were due to attend but dropped out of the event, although neither has explained why.
The award for Mr Modi has raised eyebrows because to date recipients of the Gates Foundation's "Goalkeeper" award have largely been grassroots political and community activists.
While it's true that the number of toilets has increased significantly, a BBC investigation found that many of them are not working or aren't being used for various reasons, from lack of running water to poor maintenance to deeply ingrained cultural habits. Recent research found that people in some parts of northern India preferred to defecate in the open because they found it more "comfortable" or thought it to be "part of a wholesome, healthy virtuous life".Link to Original Source
115493518
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PolygamousRanchKid writes:
An asteroid will pass so close to Earth on Saturday that home astronomers will be able to see it.
Experts say the asteroid, known as Asteroid 2000 QW7, will miss our planet by about 3 million miles — around 14 times the distance between the Earth and the moon. Gianluca Masi, Scientific Director at The Virtual Telescope, told Salon in a statement that amateur astronomers can view its fly-by, which is at 7:54 pm on the East Coast, but will have to have a telescope with a diameter of at least 250 millimeters. “Around the fly-by time, the asteroid will be about 8 degrees south-south-west of the bright star Fomalhaut,” Masi said in an email statement.
Experts at B612 Foundation, a non-profit organization whose mission is to protect Earth from asteroid impact, say while this is not a threat to our planet today, it could be in the very distant future, as its orbit will cause it to repeatedly pass near Earth. NASA released a statement this week to the public to emphasize it is not a threat, noting that it is actually one of two asteroids to pass Earth this weekend. The second asteroid, asteroid 2010 C01, is estimated to be 120 to 260 meters in size (400 to 850 feet).Link to Original Source
115438560
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PolygamousRanchKid writes:
IN AN ATRIUM designed to evoke ancient Greece—ringed by stone columns and six towering approximations of the Caryatids—it was fitting that Ren Zhengfei, chief executive of Huawei, should extend an olive branch to the West: a piece of his company. The palatial edifice on Huawei’s sprawling campus in Shenzhen houses an exhibition hall proudly displaying the Chinese telecommunications giant’s “fifth-generation” (5G) technology. For a one-time fee, a transaction would give the buyer perpetual access to Huawei’s existing 5G patents, licences, code, technical blueprints and production know-how. The acquirer could modify the source code, meaning that neither Huawei nor the Chinese government would have even hypothetical control of any telecoms infrastructure built using equipment produced by the new company. Huawei would likewise be free to develop its technology in whatever direction it pleases.
Mr Ren’s stated aim is to create a rival that could compete in 5G with Huawei (which would keep its existing contracts and continue to sell its own 5G kit). To his mind, this would help level the playing field at a time when many in the West have grown alarmed at the prospect of a Chinese company supplying the gear for most of the world’s new mobile-phone networks. “A balanced distribution of interests is conducive to Huawei’s survival,” Mr Ren says.
n saying he wants to create a fairer technological race, Mr Ren is also attempting to dissociate American security fears from those of Huawei’s market dominance.
Huawei is being forced to transform itself from a company that makes and sells hardware into one that also makes many components that it used to buy from others. This kind of shift strains a firm. Its cash cow is under threat even as it has to invest heavily to replace the suppliers and software it can no longer get from America. Mr Ren might hope that his proposed sale of Huawei’s 5G technology will give him sufficient fuel for Huawei to fly ever higher. But peer behind the showy frescoes in Shenzhen, and his showier gesture, and Huawei’s future looks decidedly hazy.Link to Original Source
115413370
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PolygamousRanchKid writes:
T. Boone Pickens, the legendary energy executive who became America's best-known oil tycoon, died Wednesday at age 91. The longtime Dallas resident, who suffered a series of strokes and head injuries in a 2017 fall, died of natural causes, said his spokesman, Jay Rosser.
The energy tycoon launched a campaign aimed at cutting the United States' dependence on the OPEC oil cartel by embracing alternative energies like wind and solar power, though he noted they wouldn't replace oil completely. "Wind and solar are beautiful resources, and America has plenty of both," he told NPR's Michel Martin in 2016. "But neither one of them are transportation fuels. I mean, do they help? Of course they help! And they should be developed. I'm for anything American." Pickens once announced plans to build the world's largest wind farm in Texas, then he planned to move it to Minnesota. But in the end, he sold off his investment — at a $150 million loss, he said.Link to Original Source
115413098
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PolygamousRanchKid writes:
The Trump administration is preparing to ban flavored e-cigarettes as federal health officials call for restrictions to combat an outbreak of a mysterious lung disease that has sickened hundreds and killed at least six people, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told reporters Wednesday. The Food and Drug Administration is currently finalizing its guidance to remove all non-tobacco flavors of e-cigarettes, including mint and menthol, from the market within 30 days. Companies might be able to reintroduce their flavors at a later date, so long as they submit a formal application and receive approval from the FDA.
“The Trump Administration is making it clear that we intend to clear the market of flavored e-cigarettes to reverse the deeply concerning epidemic of youth e-cigarette use that is impacting children, families, schools and communities,” Azar said in a statement. “We will not stand idly by as these products become an on-ramp to combustible cigarettes or nicotine addiction for a generation of youth.”Link to Original Source
