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Comment Re:Taste (Score 1) 630

by rwa2 (#49562333) Attached to: Pepsi To Stop Using Aspartame

Weird... I never worried about anything I ingest. But Sucralose / Splenda was the first thing that I ever drank that gave me an instant headache (and I almost never get headaches), and now I go out of my way to make sure that the stuff I buy doesn't have it in the ingredients list.

Submission + - Scientist says "The Universe is a hologram", People speak out (sciencedaily.com)

Submitted by __aabppq7737
__aabppq7737 writes: "Up until now, this principle has only been studied in exotic spaces with negative curvature. This is interesting from a theoretical point of view, but such spaces are quite different from the space in our own universe. Results obtained by scientists at TU Wien (Vienna) now suggest that the holographic principle even holds in a flat spacetime", like ours.

Submission + - Using Adderall in the Office to Get Ahead

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: The NYT reports that drugs like Adderall were once only prescribed to help children with attention deficit disorders focus on their school work but then college students found those drugs could increase their ability to study. Now a growing number of workers use them to help compete. What will happen as these drugs are more widely used in the workplace? According to Anjan Chatterjee, the use of neurotechnologies to enhance healthy people’s brain function could easily become widespread. "If anything, we worship workplace productivity by any means. Americans work longer hours and take fewer vacations than most others in the developed world. Why not add drugs to energize, focus and limit that annoying waste of time — sleep?" Julian Savulescu says that what defines human beings is their extraordinary cognitive power and their ability to enhance that power through reading, writing, computing and now smart drugs. "Eighty-five percent of Americans use caffeine. Nicotine and sugar are also cognitive enhancers," says Savulescu.

But congnitive neurologist Martha Farah, says that regular use on the job is an invitation to dependence. "I also worry about the effect of drug-fueled productivity on people other than the users," says Farah. "It is not hard to imagine a supervisor telling employees that this is the standard they should aspire to in their work, however they manage to do it (hint, hint). The eventual result will be a ratcheting up of “normal” productivity, where everyone uses (and the early adopters’ advantage is only fleeting)."

Submission + - LED technology could boost WiFi speeds up to ten times (thestack.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Researchers at Oregon University have developed a new LED technology which has the potential to increase WiFi bandwidth by ten times. The engineering team hopes that the technology could help solve bandwidth problems caused by overcrowding and multimedia streaming. The system could for example be integrated with existing WiFi systems at events, in coffee shops, at airport terminals and in multiple-device homes to reduce bandwidth strain. The first prototype, WiFO, uses LEDs which rank outside of the human visual spectrum. The diodes emit an invisible stream of light measuring approximately one square meter to deliver the data. Despite the small area of usability, the research team demonstrated that the technology could be used across a hybrid network that switches between the LED transmitters and the existing WiFi system.

Submission + - Japan's Maglev Train Breaks World Speed Record (sky.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: A magnetic levitation (maglev) train in Japan has broken the world speed record by hitting 366mph. It beat the previous record of 361mph set in 2003 — but the new record could be smashed within days. Another test run is scheduled for Tuesday during which the train's speed could reach 373mph.

Submission + - MakerBot lays off 20 percent of its employees

Submitted by Jason Koebler
Jason Koebler writes: MakerBot fired roughly 20 percent of its staff Friday. Figures from 2014 placed the company’s ranks at 500, meaning the cuts could equate to roughly 100 employees. The orders came from new CEO Jonathan Jaglom, Motherboard was told. Employees are apparently being led out of the company’s Brooklyn office by security today.
“It’s about 20 percent of staff,” a MakerBot representative, who asked not to be identified because she had not received approval to speak to the press, told Motherboard. “Everyone suspected that something would be coming with the new CEO, and that there would be restructuring coming.”

Comment Who actually pays for this? (Score 1) 1

by rwa2 (#49495823) Attached to: Why the Myers-Briggs Test is Totally Meaningless

I was introduced to this briefly in college engineering courses to help understand teams and team members. It was an interesting and useful way to understand and think about other people (compared to doing nothing at all). But never encountered it again "out in the field".

It seems like a useful tool for people managers to articulate their "team dynamic" and identify risks from not having a diverse enough team. But doesn't seem like anyone else would particularly be concerned.

--
(INTP, at least way back when)

Submission + - The Hidden FM Radio Inside Your Pocket (npr.org)

Submitted by mr crypto
mr crypto writes: Data providers would probably prefer you not know that most smart phones contain an FM chip that lets you listen to broadcasts for free: "But the FM chip is not activated on two-thirds of devices. That's because mobile makers have the FM capability switched off." The National Association of Broadcasters, National Public Radio, and American Public Media — have launched a lobbying campaign to get those radios switched on.

Submission + - Gyrocopter pilot appears in court; judge bans him from D.C. (latimes.com) 4

Submitted by mpicpp
mpicpp writes: The Florida mail carrier accused of landing a gyrocopter outside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday was charged in federal court Thursday and has been barred from returning to the District of Columbia or flying any aircraft, officials said.

Douglas Hughes, 61, was charged with violating aircraft registration requirements, a felony, and violating national defense airspace, a misdemeanor. If convicted, he could be sentenced to up to three years in prison for the felony and one year in prison for the airspace violation.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah A. Robinson also barred Hughes from the District of Columbia, except for court appearances, and said he must stay away from the Capitol, White House and nearby areas while he is there. He will also have to hand over his passport.

Submission + - Enceladus Spreads Ghostly Ice Tendrils Around Saturn (discovery.com)

Submitted by astroengine
astroengine writes: A ghostly apparition has long been known to follow Saturn moon Enceladus in its orbit around the gas giant. But until now, scientists have had a hard time tracking its source. Using images from NASA’s Cassini mission, the source of these tendrils have been tracked down and they originate from the icy moon’s famous geysers. But even better than that, scientists have been able to track the tendril shapes down to the specific geysers that produce them. “We’ve been able to show that each unique tendril structure can be reproduced by particular sets of geysers on the moon’s surface,” said Colin Mitchell, a Cassini imaging team associate at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo., and lead author of a paper published int he Astrophysical Journal. The study of these features are helping scientists understand how much ice is being transported into Saturn's E ring from Enceladus as well as helping us understand the evolution of the moon's sub-surface ocean.

Submission + - NASA's MESSENGER Mission to Crash into Mercury in 2 Weeks (discovery.com)

Submitted by astroengine
astroengine writes: NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft is in the final days of an unprecedented and unexpectedly long-lived, close-up study of the innermost planet of the solar system, with a crashing finale expected in two weeks. Out of fuel, the robotic Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging, or MESSENGER, probe on April 30 will succumb to the gravitational pull of this strange world that has been its home since March 2011. The purpose of the mission, originally designed to last one year, is to collect detailed geochemical and other data that will help scientists piece together of how Mercury formed and evolved. Mercury is one of four versions of rocky planets in the solar system, along with cloud-shrouded Venus, life-friendly Earth and dry, cold Mars. "MESSENGER is going to create a new crater on Mercury sometime in the near future ... let's not be sad about that," NASA associate administrator John Grunsfeld said Thursday.

Submission + - If Earth never had life, continents would be smaller (sciencemag.org) 1

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: It may seem counterintuitive, but life on Earth, even with all the messy erosion it creates, keeps continents growing. Presenting here this week at the annual meeting of the European Geosciences Union, researchers say it's the erosion itself that makes the difference in continental size. Plant life, for example, can root its way through rock, breaking rocks into sediment. The sediments, like milk-dunked cookies, carry liquid water in their pores, which allows more water to be recycled back into Earth’s mantle. If not enough water is present in the mantle about 100 to 200 km deep to keep things flowing, continental production decreases. The authors built a planetary evolution model to show how these processes relate and found that if continental weathering and erosion rates decreased, at first the continents would remain large. But over time, if life never evolved on Earth, not enough water would make its way to the mantle to help produce more continental crust, and whatever continents there were would then shrink. Now, continents cover 40% of the planet. Without life, that coverage would shrink to 30%. In a more extreme case, if life never existed, the continents might only cover 10% of Earth.

Submission + - Video of Falcon 9 first stage landing attempt

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: The footage is looped so you can watch today's landing attempt several times in a row. It is once again astonishing that the rocket hits the target, but it is coming down very fast, and not very vertical. Like the Grasshopper tests, they need to slow it down more just before landing.

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