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Submission + - Japanese researchers transplant brain cells to cure Parkinsons (fareastgizmos.com)

Submitted by morpheus83
morpheus83 writes: apanese researchers have transplanted stem cells into the brain of a patient in the first stage of an innovative trial to cure Parkinson’s disease. The research team at Kyoto University injected 2.4 million induced Pluripotent Stem (iPS) cells — which have the potential to develop into any cell in the body — into the left side of a male patient in his fifties. The patient was stable after the operation, which was performed last month. The man will be monitored for two years. If no problems are observed in the coming six months, the researchers will implant another 2.4 million cells into the right side of the patient.

Submission + - Latest Windows 10 Update Breaks Windows Media Player, Win32 Apps In General (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The important data loss bug that interrupted the rollout of the Windows 10 October 2018 Update, version 1809, may be fixed, but it turns out there are plenty of other weird problems with the release. As spotted by Paul Thurrott, the update also breaks the seek bar in Windows Media Player when playing "specific files." Microsoft does promise to fix the bug, but the timeframe is vaguely open-ended: it will be "in an upcoming release."

Also in the "how did that happen" category comes another bug: some Win32 programs can't be set as the default program for a given file type. So if you want certain files to always open in Notepad, for example, you're currently out of luck. A fix for this is promised by the end of the month. Setting default program associations is something that's been in Windows for 20-something years, so it's a little alarming that it should be broken. On top of this, there continue to be complaints that Windows 10 version 1809 doesn't work with iCloud, and machines with the iCloud client are currently blacklisted to prevent them from receiving the 1809 update. It's not immediately clear whose fault this one is—it could be Microsoft's, but it's also possible that Apple is to blame.

Submission + - Recent Quasar Observations Support Lots of Mini-Bangs Instead of One Big Bang 3

Submitted by Chris Reeve
Chris Reeve writes: Wired Magazine is reporting that astronomers have since 2014 witnessed up to 100 possible instances of quasars transforming into galaxies over very short timespans, but the article leaves no hint of the trouble this spells for the Big Bang cosmology. The article begins:

Stephanie Lamassa did a double take. She was staring at two images on her computer screen, both of the same object — except they looked nothing alike.

The first image, captured in 2000 with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, resembled a classic quasar: an extremely bright and distant object powered by a ravenous supermassive black hole in the center of a galaxy. It was blue, with broad peaks of light. But the second image, measured in 2010, was one-tenth its former brightness and did not exhibit those same peaks.

The quasar seemed to have vanished, leaving just another galaxy.

That had to be impossible, she thought. Although quasars turn off, transitioning into mere galaxies, the process should take 10,000 years or more. This quasar appeared to have shut down in less than 10 years — a cosmic eyeblink.

What the Wired article fails to mention is that the short timespans vindicate the quasar ejection model proposed by Edwin Hubble's assistant, Halton Arp, who insisted that these objects must be considerably closer than the extreme distances inferred by their redshifts:

The conclusion was very, very strong just from looking at this picture that these objects had been ejected from the central galaxy, and that they were initially at high redshift, and the redshift decayed as time went on. And therefore, we were looking at a physics that was operating in the universe in which matter was born with low mass and very high redshift, and it matured and evolved into our present form, that we were seeing the birth and evolution of galaxies in the universe.

Arp's attempts to publish his quasar ejection model famously led to his removal from the world's largest optical telescope at that time — the 200-inch Palomar. He decided to resign from his permanent position at the Carnegie Institute of Washington on the principle of "whether scientists could follow new lines of investigation, and follow up ... on evidence which apparently contradicted the current theorems and the current paradigms."

The fact that these quasar changes appear to occur over just months in some cases should raise questions about whether or not the objects are truly at the vast distances and scales implied by their redshift-inferred distances. However, the Wired Magazine article makes no mention at all of Arp, the implications for Big Bang's redshift assumption, nor of the dire consequences for the expanding universe paradigm.

Comment useless data sources (Score 5, Funny) 295

by sweet reason (#57345348) Attached to: John Hancock Will Include Fitness Tracking In All Life Insurance Policies

a friend of mine mentioned that when he wears his fitbit on his right hand and plays his ukulele, his recorded activity level goes through the roof. so getting those insurance discounts while sitting on your couch will be easy. ditto for posted food choices. when the company figures that out their next move will be to become big brother.

Submission + - Petroglyph Explanation Remains Ignored After 15 Years

Submitted by Chris Reeve
Chris Reeve writes: A government researcher in plasma and nuclear physics demonstrated in a 2003 paper that 40% of all petroglyph types could be correlated to unique forms witnessed for the first time just two years prior in classified government laboratories. A recent Joe Rogan Experience episode viewed by a million people and featuring Robert Schoch, a Ph.D. in Geology and Geophysics from Yale, briefly mentions the discovery. But petroglyph experts and the larger scientific community continue to completely ignore the findings and implications. What does it mean that the public must learn about this groundbreaking discovery from a comedian? Why have science journalists ignored the discovery for almost 15 years?

Submission + - NASA's Curiosity rover finds organic matter on Mars (cnn.com)

Submitted by drdread66
drdread66 writes: Organic matter has been found on Mars in soil samples taken from 3 billion-year-old mudstone in the Gale crater by the Curiosity rover, NASA announced Thursday. The rover has also detected methane in the Martian atmosphere.

The search for life outside Earth focuses on the building blocks of life as we know it, which includes organic compounds and molecules — although these can exist without life. Organic matter can be one of several things: a record detailing ancient life, a food source for life or something that exists in the place of life.

Submission + - 'Pirates' Tend To Be the Biggest Buyers of Legal Content, Study Shows (vice.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: According to a paywalled survey of 1,000 UK residents by anti-piracy outfit MUSO first spotted by Torrent Freak, 60 percent of those surveyed admitted that they had illegally streamed or downloaded music, film, or TV shows sometime in the past. But the study also showed that 83 percent of those questioned try to find the content they are looking for through above board services before trying anything else. And while the study found that 86 percent of survey takers subscribe to a streaming subscription service like Netflix, that total jumped to 91 percent among those that admit to piracy. The survey found that the top reason that users pirate is the content they were looking for wasn’t legally available (34 percent) was too cumbersome or difficult to access (34 percent), or wasn’t affordable (35 percent).

Submission + - A New Biofilament for Your 3D Printer (nature.com)

Submitted by smugfunt
smugfunt writes: Taking inspiration from a kind of mushroom, scientists from Singapore have created a polymer composite from cellulose and chitosan, both abundant natural materials, which has properties a bit like wood and a bit like plastic. It is less dense than both and can be extruded as a paste before drying to a solid material that can be finished with normal woodworking tools. It also sticks strongly to wood.
It is biodegradable and needs no harsh solvents or extreme conditions to produce.
They call it Fungus-Like Additive Material or FLAM and say it costs about a tenth the price of PLA or ABS filament.

Submission + - 'Carbon Bubble' Could Spark Global Financial Crisis, Study Warns (theguardian.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The existence of a “carbon bubble” — assets in fossil fuels that are currently overvalued because, in the medium and long-term, the world will have to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions – has long been proposed by academics, activists and investors. The new study, published on Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change, shows that a sharp slump in the value of fossil fuels would cause this bubble to burst, and posits that such a slump is likely before 2035 based on current patterns of energy use. Crucially, the findings suggest that a rapid decline in fossil fuel demand is no longer dependent on stronger policies and actions from governments around the world. Instead, the authors’ detailed simulations found the demand drop would take place even if major nations undertake no new climate policies, or reverse some previous commitments. That is because advances in technologies for energy efficiency and renewable power, and the accompanying drop in their price, have made low-carbon energy much more economically and technically attractive.

Submission + - Oregon Is Running Out of Workers Who Can Pass a Drug Test

Submitted by klossner
klossner writes: Now that marijuana is legal and cheap in Oregon, employers are having trouble finding job applicants who can pass a drug test. "It may be that individuals who can pass a drug test already have a job. It may be for insurance-related reasons that employers are ensuring they have a drug-free workplace." Economists aren’t sure what to make of the possibility that a lot of Oregonians cannot produce clean urine.

Submission + - DigiLens is Developing a Waveguide Display for 150 Degree AR/VR Headsets (roadtovr.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Road to VR reports that DigiLens, a developer of transparent waveguide display technology, says it’s working toward a waveguide display which could bring a 150 degree field of view to AR and VR (or combined headsets. The company expects the display will be available in 2019. DigiLens' waveguide displays use light manipulating structures which are "printed" into a thin transparent material, and bounce the light along before being projected into the user's eye. The technique allows for the creation of headsets which are truly glasses-sized. The company says that a new manufacturing process has drastically reduced the cost of such displays.

Submission + - Facebook gave user data to 60 companies including Apple, Amazon, and Samsung (businessinsider.com)

Submitted by Heritype
Heritype writes: Facebook had data-sharing agreements with at least 60 device markers, many of which are still in effect, according to a report in The New York Times . Apple, Amazon, Samsung, and Microsoft were all among the companies to have a data-sharing partnership with Facebook over the last 10 years, according to The Times. Without explicit consent, device makers were allowed to access data of users' friends, even after Facebook said it would not share such information. A Facebook statement in response to the report denies that information belonging to friends of users was shared without permission.

On April 10, CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before a rare US Senate joint committee in response to the Cambridge Analytica scandal. A week earlier it emerged that data firm Cambridge Analytica may have gotten access to the data of up to 87 million users , and most of Facebook's 2 billion users may have had their personal data skimmed by "malicious actors." Beginning in 2014, Facebook began ending the access app developers had to users' friends data, which included names, birthdays, and even political or religious leanings. But The Times report suggests major device makers were not restricted by the same policy.

Submission + - A Major Physics Experiment Just Detected A Particle That Shouldn't Exist (livescience.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Scientists have produced the firmest evidence yet of so-called sterile neutrinos, mysterious particles that pass through matter without interacting with it at all.

The first hints these elusive particles turned up decades ago. But after years of dedicated searches, scientists have been unable to find any other evidence for them, with many experiments contradicting those old results. These new results now leave scientists with two robust experiments that seem to demonstrate the existence of sterile neutrinos, even as other experiments continue to suggest sterile neutrinos don't exist at all.

That means there's something strange happening in the universe that is making humanity's most cutting-edge physics experiments contradict one another.

It's possible that the anomaly in the LSND and MiniBooNE experiments might turn out to be the "systematics," meaning there's something about the way neutrinos are interacting with the experimental setup that scientists don't yet understand. But it's also looking more and more possible that scientists are going to have to explain why so many other experiments aren't spotting very real sterile neutrinos that are turning up in Fermilab and Los Alamos Lab. And if that's the case, they'll have to revise their entire understanding of the universe in the process.

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