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Submission + - Shadow Scholar Details Student Cheating (chronicle.com)

Submitted by vortex2.71
vortex2.71 writes: A "shadow writer", who lives on the East Coast, details how he makes a living writing papers for a custom-essay company and to describe the extent of student cheating he has observed. In the course of editing his article, The Chronicle Of Higher Education reviewed correspondence he had with clients and some of the papers he had been paid to write.
Space

Submission + - Scientist proposes one-way trips to Mars (nwsource.com)

Submitted by vortex2.71
vortex2.71 writes: Invoking the spirit of "Star Trek" in a scholarly article entitled "To Boldly Go," two scientists contend human travel to Mars could happen much more quickly and cheaply if the missions are made one-way. They argue that it would be little different from early settlers to North America, who left Europe with little expectation of return.

"The main point is to get Mars exploration moving," said Dirk Schulze-Makuch of Washington State University, who wrote the article in the latest "Journal of Cosmology" with Paul Davies of Arizona State University. The colleagues state — in one of 55 articles in the issue devoted to exploring Mars — that humans must begin colonizing another planet as a hedge against a catastrophe on Earth.

Mars is a six-month flight away, possesses surface gravity, an atmosphere, abundant water, carbon dioxide and essential minerals. They propose the missions start by sending two two-person teams, in separate ships, to Mars. More colonists and regular supply ships would follow.
Supercomputing

Submission + - China Overtakes U.S. in Supercomputer Performance

Submitted by adeelarshad82
adeelarshad82 writes: It's been rumored, but now it's official. The Chinese Tianhe-1A system at the National Supercomputer Center in Tianjin has achieved a performance level of 2.57 petaflop/s (quadrillions of calculations per second). This puts it in the number one spot on the 36th edition of the TOP500's world's most powerful supercomputer list. As a result, the prior winner on the list—the Cray XT5 "Jaguar" system at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility in Tennessee—is now ranked in second place, with a score of 1.75 petaflop/s.

Submission + - U.S. to retake supercomputer throne from China (digitaltrends.com)

Submitted by Merpy
Merpy writes: China has broken the record for computing speed, creating a supercomputer that calculates at 2.57 petaflops. Now the U.S. is working on two 20 petaflop supercomputers. Is a digital cold war brewing? If so, it’s going to produce a lot of heat. China’s record-breaking 2.57 petaflop supercomputer, Tianhe-1A, officially broke the world record for computing speed Friday, and already the United States is working on something much larger. Two 20 petaflop supercomputers are in development in the States, reports Computerworld.
Power

Submission + - Nuclear Fusion Possible Within 2-3 Years? (gizmag.com) 1

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes: Even with all the developments taking place in the areas of alternative energy such as solar and wind power, nuclear fusion still remains the holy grail of clean electricity generation. However, after decades of worldwide research costing billions of dollars, the goal of achieving “net-gain,” where more energy is produced than is required to trigger the fusion chain reaction, still remains elusive. Now researchers at Sandia Labs are claiming a breakthrough that could see break-even fusion reactions in as little as two to three years.

Comment Total Moves Not Moves/second (Score 1) 76

by vortex2.71 (#34201382) Attached to: Android Phone Solves Rubik's Cube In 12.5 Seconds

The total moves required to reach a solution is usually more important than the moves per second. While the robot is slower to physically move the device, it is probably moving the cube more efficiently than many humans. For instance, I can solve the cube, but do so by only moving one square at a time. More advanced solvers can move several squares simultaneously... a good computer will come up with the most efficient moves to solve the puzzle.

Comment Chase Iphone App (Score 1) 107

by vortex2.71 (#34143594) Attached to: Major Security Holes Found In Mobile Bank Apps

I use the Chase iphone app and am perfectly happy with its security. I did not opt to store my username on the phone and therefor my security was never in a perilous state. People who chose to store their username on the phone have a SLIGHTLY less secure system, but probably chose to do so because their password is very secure or they just don't care. I think this is more about people than systems.

Comment But what about the orbital distances? (Score 1) 380

by vortex2.71 (#34066204) Attached to: The Galaxy May Have Billions of Habitable Planets

Its great that these planets probably exist, but what distance is their orbits? While, planet size gives us a good idea of how much atmosphere the planet could have, the orbital distance gives us an estimate of the surface temperature. Also important is the rotational frequency and the angle of tilt. It seems like there are a lot more variables that need to be considered in considering these probabilities.

Comment Re:To compute what? (Score 1) 238

by vortex2.71 (#33689666) Attached to: IBM Warns of China Closing the Supercomputer Gap

The biggest national defense use for these machines is nuclear stockpile stewardship and theoretical development of new weapons capabilities. This is a pretty big deal and is why there are export controls on Intel chips to countries like Iran. This is why all of the fastest US machines only remain unclassified during the development stage and then convert to classified status.

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