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Submission + - Astronomer discovers nearby brown dwarf literally as cold as ice

Submitted by The Bad Astronomer
The Bad Astronomer writes: Using data from the orbiting WISE and Spitzer infrared space telescopes, an astronomer has discovered a brown dwarf that is just 7.2 light years away, making it the seventh closest known interstellar object to the Sun. Not only that, it's cold ; its temperature is likely 240-260 Kelvin, well below the freezing point of water. It's literally as cold as ice.

Submission + - The Discovery of Habitable Exoplanets Is Bad News for Humanity's Future 1

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Andrew Snyder-Beattie writes that scientists recently announced the discovery of Kepler-186f, the first planet almost exactly the same size as Earth orbiting in the “habitable zone” – the distance from a star in which we might expect liquid water, and perhaps life. What they didn't announce is that this discovery also slightly increases the possibility of near-term human extinction. First consider the Fermi Paradox: Why have we not found aliens, despite the existence of hundreds of billions of solar systems in our galactic neighborhood in which life might evolve? One explanation is "the Great Filter" which can be thought of as a probability barrier that consists of one or more evolutionary transitions or steps that must be traversed at great odds in order for an Earth-like planet to produce a civilization capable of exploring distant solar systems. The Great Filter must be sufficiently powerful that even with many billions of rolls of the dice, one ends up with nothing: no aliens, no spacecraft, no signals.

We know that the Great Filter prevents the emergence of prosperous interstellar civilizations, but we don’t know whether or not it lies in humanity’s past or awaits us in the future. While emergence of intelligent life could be rare, the silence could also be the result of intelligent life emerging frequently but subsequently failing to survive for long. "For 200,000 years humanity has survived supervolcanoes, asteroid impacts, and naturally occurring pandemics," writes Snyder-Beattie. "But our track record of survival is limited to just a few decades in the presence of nuclear weaponry. And we have no track record at all of surviving many of the radically novel technologies that are likely to arrive this century." Therefor each new discovery of an Earth-like planet in the habitable zone, such as Kepler-186f, makes it less plausible that there are simply no planets aside from Earth that might support life making it more likely that the Great Filter is lurking in our future between habitable planet and a flourishing civilization.

Comment Re:did you read the post you replied to? Wrong pos (Score 1) 504

by Dragon Bait (#46811061) Attached to: Oklahoma Moves To Discourage Solar and Wind Power

The utilities already charge a flat baseline connection fee. That should take care of all infrastructure and grid maintainance. If you want it your way then I say get rid of the flat connection fee.

Do you know for certain that this is the case with this utility? I have a house in California that does not have a baseline connection fee. I have a house in Arizona that does have a baseline connection fee. I don't have a house served by this utility and don't know if they actually have a baseline connection fee.

Comment Re:Fuck that guy. (Score 1) 397

by Dragon Bait (#46529105) Attached to: Jesse Jackson To Take On Silicon Valley's Lack of Diversity

*Side note, I work in a non-technical white collar job, and a surprising number of my colleagues have tattoos.

It might be a generational thing. I personally think (thought) tattoos were very unprofessional, but the younger generation seems to have them -- a lot. One of the kids in the group (he's probably pushing 30) has tats nearly everywhere visible. I'm extremely glad they didn't discriminate against him when it came to hiring. He's change my mind on people with tats.

Submission + - Russian Army Spetsnaz Special Forces Teams Arrested Operating In Ukraine (examiner.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Examiner reports, "The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) confirmed March 16 the arrest of a group of Russians in the Zaporizhzhia (Zaporozhye) region of Ukraine. The men were armed with firearms, explosives and unspecified 'special technical means'. This follows the March 14 arrest ... of several Russians dressed black uniforms with no insignia, armed with AKS-74 assault rifles and in possession of numerous ID cards under various names. One of which was an ID card of Military Intelligence Directorate of the Russian armed forces; commonly known as 'Spetsnaz'. ... Spetsnaz commandos operating in eastern Ukraine would have the missions encompassing general ground reconnaissance of Ukrainian army units ... missions they may perform preparatory to a Russian invasion would be planting explosives at key communications choke points to hinder movement of Ukrainian forces; seizing control of roads, rail heads, bridges and ports for use by arriving Russian combat troops; and possibly capturing or assassinating Ukrainian generals or politicians in key positions ... Spetsnaz also infiltrate themselves into local populations ... Once in place they begin ‘stirring the pot’ of ethnic and political strife with the goal of creating violent clashes usually involving firearms and destabilizing local authority." — More at Forbes, The Daily Beast and The New Republic.

Submission + - Jury: Newegg infringes Spangenberg patent, must pay $2.3 million (arstechnica.com) 1

Submitted by qwerdf
qwerdf writes: Newegg, an online retailer that has made a name for itself fighting the non-practicing patent holders sometimes called "patent trolls," sits on the losing end of a lawsuit tonight. An eight-person jury came back shortly after 7:00pm and found that the company infringed all four asserted claims of a patent owned by TQP Development, a company owned by patent enforcement expert Erich Spangenberg.

Submission + - Dexterous Mobile Robot Runs Linux and ROS (linuxgizmos.com)

Submitted by __aajbyc7391
__aajbyc7391 writes: Unbounded Robotics, one of several spinoffs from Silicon Valley-based robotics lab Willow Garage, has announced UBR-1, a mobile manipulation robot designed for research and business automation. UBR-1 runs Ubuntu Linux along with Robot Operating System (ROS), has a 7 degrees-of-freedom arm with a dexterous gripper, and moves at speeds up to 1 meter per second. Among the founders of Unbounded Robotics is CEO Melonee Wise, who was the chief developer of the PR2, the similar flagship robot of Willow Garage. UBR-1 will open for pre-orders soon, starting at $35,000 and with shipments planned for next summer. While that price may seem high, it's lower than similar dexterous manipulation robots of its caliber, and only about a tenth that of Willow Garage's PR2.

Submission + - Finnish Team Makes Diabetes Vaccine Breakthrough (yle.fi)

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: A team working at Tampere University, Finland has discovered the virus that causes type 1 diabetes. The enterovirus penetrates the pancreas and destroys insulin-producing cells, eventually causing diabetes. Researchers have looked at more than a hundred different strains of the virus and pinpointed five that could cause diabetes. They believe they could produce a vaccine against those strains. One virus type has been identified to carry the biggest risk. A vaccine could also protect against its close relatives, to give the best possible effect. A similar enterovirus causes polio, which has been almost eradicated in many parts of the world thanks to vaccination programmes. A prototype diabetes vaccine has already been produced and tested on animals. Taking the vaccine through a clinical trial would cost some 700 million euros. Some funding is in place from the United States and from Europe, but more is required. Professor Heikki Hyöty says that money is the biggest obstacle in moving to testing in humans, but he sees that people are interested in their research and that the funding problems will ultimately be solved.

Comment Re:I had to put down my 15 year-old dog. (Score 2) 473

by Dragon Bait (#45170927) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: What Are the Hardest Things Programmers Have To Do?

That was hard. I loved that dog.

I would have marked this as "insightful" versus funny.

For me:

  1. -- Watching the love of my life marry someone else because I was too cowardly to ask her out in time.
    -- Explaining to my nephew that he'd never see his dad again.
    -- I still don't know what to say/do around my niece that was raped.
    -- I don't know if I'm proud of myself or self loathing for not having killed the rapist yet.

Most of these fall into "communication with people"; one falls into "planning and plan execution."

Submission + - Timelapse of Endeavour's Final Ride

Submitted by tippen
tippen writes: Fascinating timelapse video of the space shuttle Endeavor's final ride from Kennedy Space Center to LAX, then through 12 miles of city streets to the museum.

Sad to see the end of an era.

Comment Re:Maybe overturning an election (Score 1) 381

by Dragon Bait (#44567987) Attached to: Egyptian Security Forces Storm Pro-Morsi Camps Leaving Nearly 100 Dead

Ah. The recently popular "everyone is doing it, so we are okay to do it too". The slow descent in the abyss of mediocrity. I am sure if we tally it up, the US is actually responsible for the highest amount of meddling and government overthrows on this planet in the last 70 years. Basically every president of this nation in that period has overthrown someone somewhere.

70 years? That brings us back to, what, 1943? Who was the first democratically elected government that the US over threw starting in 1943? Was it the National Socialists in Germany? Just curious.

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