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Comment Re:Agency (Score 1) 45

by No Safety In Life on Thursday June 18, 2020 @07:25PM (#60199916) Attached to: Twitch Streamers Receive a Flood of Music Copyright Claims For Old Clips

The point is streamers are allowed to play that music during live streams, as long as they don't record the sessions. CohhCarnage, for example, mutes any copyrighted music on his VODs, so copyright in his VODs aren't an issue. When people 'clip' segments of a live stream, the streamer has no control over that.

Submission + - Scientists Say Most Likely Number of Contactable Alien Civilizations Is 36 (theguardian.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16, 2020 @06:27PM

An anonymous reader writes: They may not be little green men. They may not arrive in a vast spaceship. But according to new calculations there could be more than 30 intelligent civilizations in our galaxy today capable of communicating with others. In 1961 the astronomer Frank Drake proposed what became known as the Drake equation, setting out seven factors that would need to be known to come up with an estimate for the number of intelligent civilisations out there. These factors ranged from the the average number of stars that form each year in the galaxy through to the timespan over which a civilisation would be expected to be sending out detectable signals.

But few of the factors are measurable. “Drake equation estimates have ranged from zero to a few billion [civilisations] – it is more like a tool for thinking about questions rather than something that has actually been solved,” said Christopher Conselice, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Nottingham and a co-author of the research. Now Conselice and colleagues report in the Astrophysical Journal how they refined the equation with new data and assumptions to come up with their estimates. “Basically, we made the assumption that intelligent life would form on other [Earth-like] planets like it has on Earth, so within a few billion years life would automatically form as a natural part of evolution,” said Conselice.

The assumption, known as the Astrobiological Copernican Principle, is fair as everything from chemical reactions to star formation is known to occur if the conditions are right, he said. “[If intelligent life forms] in a scientific way, not just a random way or just a very unique way, then you would expect at least this many civilisations within our galaxy,” he said. Under the strictest set of assumptions – where, as on Earth, life forms between 4.5bn and 5.5bn years after star formation – there are likely between four and 211 civilisations in the Milky Way today capable of communicating with others, with 36 the most likely figure. But Conselice noted that this figure is conservative, not least as it is based on how long our own civilisation has been sending out signals into space – a period of just 100 years so far. The team add that our civilisation would need to survive at least another 6,120 years for two-way communication.

Submission + - New Horizons snaps pictures of Wolf 359 and Proxima Centauri, observes parallax (space.com)

Submitted by JoeRobe on Sunday June 14, 2020 @09:46AM

JoeRobe writes: Space.com and other outlets are reporting on new pictures of Wolf 359 and Proxima Centauri sent back from New Horizons. The images show clear parallax between the view from Earth and from the spacecraft 6.9 billion km away. In effect, New Horizons is looking up at a visually different star field than we are.

This is not the first time stellar parallax has been observed (Hipparcos did this regularly), but thanks to the enormous distance between New Horizons and Earth it is the first time the parallax can be clearly seen with the naked eye. NASA has even created stereoscopic pairs to get a 3D view.

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