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Science

Submission + - Rejected papers get more citations when eventually published (nature.com)

Submitted by scibri
scibri writes: In a study of more than 80,000 bioscience papers, researchers have illuminated the usually hidden flows of papers from journal to journal before publication.

Surprisingly, they found that papers published after having first been rejected elsewhere receive significantly more citations on average than ones accepted on first submission.

There were a few other surprises as well...Nature and Science publish more papers that were initially rejected elsewhere than lower-impact journals do.

So there is apparently some reason to be patient with your paper’s critics — they will do you good in the end.
Space

Submission + - Small Telescopes Make Big Discoveries

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Hakeem Oluseyi, an astronomer at the Florida Institute of Technology and president of the African Astronomical Society, says his goal is to put one research telescope in every country, starting with African and Southern Hemisphere nations because there is now an amazing opportunity for small telescopes to discover and characterize new planetary systems, as well as measure the structure of the Milky Way. "Astronomers are no longer looking at high-definition pictures but at HD movies, scanning for objects that change and for transient ones," says Oluseyi. "A 4-inch telescope was used to discover the first exoplanet by the transit method, where you watch the brightness vary." Small telescopes capable to doing real science are a lot cheaper than people think. A 1-meter telescope costs $300,000 but reduce the size by 60 percent, and it falls to just $30,000. For example the Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope (KELT) uses hardware costing less than $75,000 to look at millions of very bright stars at once, over broad sections of sky, and at low resolution to see if the starlight dims just a little — an indication that a planet has crossed in front of the star. The KELT team has already discovered the existence of a very unusual faraway planet — KELT-1b, a super hot, super dense ball of metallic hydrogen so massive that it may better be described as a 'failed star' and located so close to its star that it whips through an entire "yearly" orbit in a little over a day."
NASA

Submission + - New NASA robot could help paraplegics walk (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "NASA said today it has helped develop a 57-lb robotic exoskeleton that a person could wear over his or her body either to assist or inhibit movement in leg joints. The X1 was derived from NASA and General Motors Robonaut 2 project and the could find applications as an in-space exercise machine to supply resistance against leg movement more importantly as a way to help some individuals walk for the first time."

Comment If it is due to sexism=great business opportunity (Score 1) 467

by poszi (#41493879) Attached to: Sexism In Science

If women are as productive as men than there is an extreme business opportunity for hiring women. Women-heavy employers would have great advantage over men-heavy employers in the same field: the same work done with lower salary. In free market, it would increase demand for women labor and would equalize salaries.

What is also possible is that women are in fact less productive in aggregate. Even with equal potential capabilities to men, the employers are not sure if a hired women is going to concentrate on the career or on taking care of the children and this potential risk makes them offer smaller salaries. This theory is supported by the fact that the men/women salary gap is the smallest in Scandinavian countries where there are programs forcing men to take parental leave to take care of children.

Comment Distribution fee has little to do with losses (Score 3, Informative) 314

by poszi (#39076897) Attached to: Small, Modular Nuclear Reactors — the Future of Energy?
The distribution fee is a significant part of my utility bill

Distribution fee covers the infrastructure costs. Ever seen a footage after a big storm with fallen trees, broken lines? Maintaining and repairing the lines is costly. It costs much more than power losses due to transmission over large distances. You would have to pay fees to cover infrastructure costs no matter if there were one power plant per 100,000 households or one per 100.

Comment This is far from victory (Score 3) 139

by poszi (#38920757) Attached to: ACTA's EU Future In Doubt As Poland Suspends Ratification
Currently there is an enormous backlash against ACTA in Poland. If the ratification voting were held today, it would likely be rejected. But suspending means trying to push it later (or via EU channels) when it becomes forgotten. Now is the time for other EU citizens to stand up when it is still hot. Sadly, corporate lobbying is so strong nowadays that fighting it requires almost constant effort.
Bitcoin

Submission + - MtGox.com Bitcoin trading site compromised (mtgox.com) 3

Submitted by Beardydog
Beardydog writes: Bitcoin trading site MtGox.com has suspended operations for the rest of the day after illicit access to at least one account resulted in a steep drop in the price of Bitcoins on the site. Commenters to the support page for the event are reporting that a list of usernames and associated email addresses and password hashes have been posted online. MtGox are currently planning to roll back all of the day's trading, email notices to all affected users, and require replacement passwords for affected accounts.

Comment Independent of any central entity (Score 1) 344

by poszi (#36476822) Attached to: Trojan Goes After Bitcoins
As much as the Bitcoin stories are getting a little much we are seeing the birth of something completely new; A medium of exchange that is independent of any government.

This is not new. There were and are many currencies independent of any government (Disney, Linden dollar, local currencies) but Bitcoin is the first project of currency fully decentralized, independent of any central authority. This is something really novel.

Comment Destroying Bitcoin is getting more and more costly (Score 0) 490

by poszi (#36175898) Attached to: Mint It Yourself With a Browser-Based Bitcoin Miner
This obviously assumes the attacker is interested in profits that can be extracted from the system. An attacker who is already wealthy, and has a greater interest in undermining the system than extracting profit from it, can trivially overwhelm the network by assembling processing power - especially if the attacker already has a stockpile of processing power.

Usually, the cost of destroying something is much cheaper than creating it. That's why terrorism can work. The cost of attacking is not that large compared to fear, destruction and cost of guarding. 9/11 proved it very well.

In case of Bitcoins, obtaining 50% of the network compute speed required for completely disrupting the Bitcoin network grows with Bitcoin size. When Bitcoin network compute speed crossed the fastest supercomputer Tianhe-1A, it is no longer that easy. Destroying Bitcoin network is roughly as costly as the Bitcoin economy size and if it grows, it will become even more costly. This is not asymmetric as in case of terrorism. It is still possible for national governments but it's no longer a matter switching on a small cluster.

Comment Cost of destroying Bitcoin will grow (Score 2) 490

by poszi (#36175788) Attached to: Mint It Yourself With a Browser-Based Bitcoin Miner
This obviously assumes the attacker is interested in profits that can be extracted from the system. An attacker who is already wealthy, and has a greater interest in undermining the system than extracting profit from it, can trivially overwhelm the network by assembling processing power - especially if the attacker already has a stockpile of processing power.

Usually, the cost of destroying something is much cheaper than creating it. That's why terrorism can work. The cost of attacking is not that large compared to fear, destruction and cost of guarding. 9/11 proved it very well. In case of Bitcoins, obtaining 50% of the network compute speed required for completely disrupting the Bitcoin network grows with Bitcoin size. When Bitcoin network compute speed crossed the fastest supercomputer Tianhe-1A, it is no longer that easy. Destroying Bitcoin economy is roughly as costly as the Bitcoin economy size and if it grows, it will become even more costly.

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