Saturday, March 28, 2015
Friday, March 27, 2015
While the FAA Stalls, Robopocalyptic Delivery Drones Take Off in China
While companies like Amazon are chomping at the bit to launch drone delivery services in the United States, packages are already soaring through the air in China.
Two years ago, residents in the city of Dongguang spotted experimental SF Express-branded delivery drones hovering overhead with packages in tow. SF Express is the country’s largest mail carrier, and it presently delivers roughly 500 packages a day via drone. Now, the company says it plans to expand its services and double the number a packages it sends each day, according to a Chinese news report.
The state of drone couriers in China couldn’t contrast more with the situation here in the United States.
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The Tallest Building Planned for Europe is Going ino a Swiss Village?!
Californian firm Morphosis (headed by Pritzker Architecture Prize winner Thom Mayne) has revealed plans for a slim mirrored skyscraper that – if it goes ahead – will be the tallest building in Europe. The part where things get weird is that it's due to be located in Vals: a small Swiss village with a population in the region of just 1,000.
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I have to admit, something like this is what I'd expected when I was younger and thinking "Future!" I have a hard time seeing it as economically viable though.
Russian Sukhoi T-50 Stealth Fighter First Order cut From 52 to 12
Russia's ambitious T-50 fighter plane project was meant to develop a rival to two futuristic US jetfighters, the F-22 Raptor and the planned F-35 Lightning-II.
But now, the T-50 appears to be rivaling the F-35 another way: in development troubles. The Kremlin is slamming the brakes on its "fifth generation" fighter program and cutting its initial rollout to a quarter of those originally planned.
The decision seems a setback for Vladimir Putin's sweeping $800 billion rearmament program, a vital component of the wider effort to restore Russia to its Soviet-era status as a major global superpower. However, the sharp slowdown in plans to procure the sophisticated new jet may represent an outbreak of wisdom on the part of Russian military chiefs, who will remember how the USSR was driven into bankruptcy by engaging in an all-out arms race with the US.
Financial constraints are the key reason cited for cutting the military order from 52 to 12 of the planes over the next few years, according to the Moscow daily Kommersant.
"Given the new economic conditions, the original plans may have to be adjusted," the paper quotes Deputy Defense Minister Yuriy Borisov as saying. The project to build a cutting-edge fighter plane, which is partly financed by India, will not be canceled, but held in abeyance while the Russian Air Force makes the most of its existing "fourth generation" MiG and Sukhoi combat aircraft, he added.
No one knows whether technical problems may also have played a role in the decision to shelve the fighter.
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US Air Force, US Navy to Team up for "Joint Analysis of Alternatives" for 6th Generation Fighters
The Navy and the Air Force could team up for their early look into their next crop of fighters due out in 2030, the Navy’s director of air warfare told USNI News on Thursday.
Starting next year, the two services are in a position to set out on a joint analysis of alternatives (AoA) for the follow on to Navy’s Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and the Air Force’s Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor air superiority fighter, said Rear Adm. Mike Manazir to USNI News following a House Armed Service Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces hearing on combat aviation.
“We’re partnering with the Air Force in their F-X program,” he said.
“We are pressing forward — subject to guidance from [Office of Secretary of Defense] (OSD) — and we are looking at doing a joint analysis of alternatives (AoA) so we can look at similarities and differences. We’re allowed to take a joint AOA and then define a service solution that would be good for each service.”
As part of the Fiscal Year 2016 budget, the Navy has set aside $5 million to start the F/A-XX work — planned to replace the Super Hornets in the 2030s.
“We feel we need a replacement for the gaps that will occur when the F-18 E and F Super Hornet — and somewhat the [EA-18G Growler] as well — start to go away from their service life perspective in about 2030,” he said.
The AoA — for the Navy — will focus replacing the capabilities of the fighter with a wide-range of options.
“So what we would look at is everything — from an airframe, to a family of systems, to continuing something we already have flying, to capabilities that we already have in the air wing or the joint world — to asses what we really need to replace the Super Hornet,” Manazir said.
The AoA will run in parallel with several other design and technology efforts across several agencies.
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Late Permian Glossopteris Flora From Deglaciating Antarctica
Glossopteris flora in the Permian Weller Formation of Allan Hills, South Victoria Land, Antarctica: Implications for paleogeography, paleoclimatology, and biostratigraphic correlation
Authors:
Tewari et al
Abstract:
The Permo-Triassic Victoria Group in South Victoria Land, Antarctica, is a heterogeneous sequence of glacial tillite beds, carbonaceous and non-carbonaceous fluvial deposits, and volcaniclastic strata. The carbonaceous beds are rich in plant fossils associated with coal seams. In Antarctica, the geological record of the Late Paleozoic Ice Age is restricted to the Early Permian. After deglaciation, the Glossopteris flora thrived in polar forests in Antarctica throughout the Permian but disappeared at the end-Permian extinction. Here we describe the first comprehensive record of the Glossopteris flora from the Permian Weller Formation of Allan Hills, South Victoria Land, Antarctica. The flora is well preserved and comprises pteridophytes and gymnosperms. The pteridophytes include the sphenopsid order Equisetales and the gymnosperms comprise Glossopteridales. Equisetales are represented by branched and unbranched axes, whereas, Glossopteridales are highly diverse encompassing Gangamopteris, Glossopteris, Surangephyllum, sterile scale leaves namely Scirroma sp., Nautiyalolepis sp., Utkaliolepis indica, Scale leaf A and scale leaf of male fructification Eretmonia. The flora of the Weller Formation shows close similarity with the Late Permian assemblages of India, South Africa and Australia. Gangamopteris, an index fossil of the Early Permian formations of different Gondwana continents, had extended stratigraphic range in the Late Permian Weller Formation of Allan Hills. Antarctica played a crucial role in the dispersal of Glossopteris flora because of its central position in Gondwana.
Harvard Geneticist Inserts Woolly Mammoth Genes Into Elephant Cells Using CRISPR
Researchers from Harvard University have successfully inserted genes from a woolly mammoth into living cells from an Asian elephant, the extinct giant's closest remaining relative.
Harvard geneticist George Church used DNA from Arctic permafrost woolly mammoth samples to copy 14 mammoth genes -- emphasizing those related to its chilly lifestyle.
"We prioritized genes associated with cold resistance including hairiness, ear size, subcutaneous fat and, especially, hemoglobin," Church told The Sunday Times.
Then, using a kind of DNA cut/paste system called CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat), Church dropped the genes into Asian elephant skin cells.
The result? A petri dish of elephant cells functioning normally with mammoth DNA in them, marking the first time mammoth genes have been on the job since the creature went extinct some 4,000 years ago, as Sarah Fecht, from Popular Science, noted.
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More Evidence of Martian Ground Water From the Arabia Terra
Monica Pondrelli and colleagues investigated the Equatorial Layered Deposits (ELDs) of Arabia Terra in Firsoff crater area, Mars, to understand their formation and potential habitability. On the plateau, ELDs consist of rare mounds, flat-lying deposits, and cross-bedded dune fields. Pondrelli and colleagues interpret the mounds as smaller spring deposits, the flat-lying deposits as playa, and the cross-bedded dune fields as aeolian. They write that groundwater fluctuations appear to be the major factor controlling ELD deposition.
Pondrelli and colleagues also note that the ELDs inside the craters would likely have originated by fluid upwelling through the fissure ridges and the mounds, and that lead to evaporite precipitation. The presence of spring and playa deposits points to the possible presence of a hydrological cycle, driving groundwater upwelling on Mars at surface temperatures above freezing. Pondrelli and colleagues write that such conditions in a similar Earth environment would have been conducive for microbial colonization.
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Nidophis insularis: a Small Maastrichtian Cretaceous Snake Found in a Dinosaur Nest, but not Eating Eggs (hint, something small and toothy was eating it)
A Late Cretaceous madtsoiid snake from Romania associated with a megaloolithid egg nest – Paleoecological inferences
Authors:
Venczel et al
Abstract:
Here we report on the taphonomy and paleoecological implications of the first record of a small madtsoiid snake (Nidophis insularis) closely associated with a megaloolithid dinosaur egg nest. Taphonomic and sedimentologic evidence suggest that the snake was buried autochthonously within or nearby the egg nest, with at least partially articulated skeleton. Count of growth rings on the vertebral zygapophyses indicates that the holotype of Nidophis belonged to an adult individual approaching the limit of its maximum body size of about 1 m length. The presence of layers of arrested growth on the zygapophyses, together with other independent data (e.g., paleomagnetic data, sedimentology, paleosol development stage, stable isotope geochemistry) indicates that Nidophis lived under a semi-arid, seasonally variable subtropical climate, having alternative periods of active feeding. The trunk vertebrae with relatively low neural spines and without prezygapophyseal accessory processes indicate a relatively heavy-bodied, slowly-moving animal, one that probably had a semifossorial habit and was an active forager, but definitively not a dinosaur nest raider as suggested for certain large madtsoiid snakes (the Indian Sanajeh). Potential prey items, available around the dinosaur nesting area, probably ranged from small squamate eggs to various small vertebrates. Finally, one anterior trunk vertebra of the holotype displays distinct bite marks left by a small-sized and pointed-toothed predator, most probably a crocodyliform or a theropod, thus documenting that madtsoiids were also preyed upon.
Did mommy bring home a snack?
Vascular Plants Survive Mass Extinctions Better Than Animals
Revisiting the origin and diversification of vascular plants through a comprehensive Bayesian analysis of the fossil record
Authors:
Silvestro et al
Abstract:
Summary
Plants have a long evolutionary history, during which mass extinction events dramatically affected Earth's ecosystems and its biodiversity. The fossil record can shed light on the diversification dynamics of plant life and reveal how changes in the origination–extinction balance have contributed to shaping the current flora.
We use a novel Bayesian approach to estimate origination and extinction rates in plants throughout their history. We focus on the effect of the ‘Big Five’ mass extinctions and on estimating the timing of origin of vascular plants, seed plants and angiosperms.
Our analyses show that plant diversification is characterized by several shifts in origination and extinction rates, often matching the most important geological boundaries. The estimated origin of major plant clades predates the oldest macrofossils when considering the uncertainties associated with the fossil record and the preservation process.
Our findings show that the commonly recognized mass extinctions have affected each plant group differently and that phases of high extinction often coincided with major floral turnovers. For instance, after the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary we infer negligible shifts in diversification of nonflowering seed plants, but find significantly decreased extinction in spore-bearing plants and increased origination rates in angiosperms, contributing to their current ecological and evolutionary dominance.
Thursday, March 26, 2015
Physicists Suggest Looking for Dyson Spheres Around White Dwarfs
Back in 1960, the physicist Freeman Dyson publish an unusual paper in the journalScience entitled “Search for Artificial Stellar Sources of Infra-red Radiation.” In it, he outlined a hypothetical structure that entirely encapsulates a star to capture its energy, which has since become known as a Dyson sphere.
The basic idea is that all technological civilizations require ever greater sources of energy. Once the energy of their home planet has been entirely exhausted, the next obvious source is the mother star. So such a civilization is likely to build a shell around its star that captures the energy it produces.
Of course, such a sphere must also radiate the energy it absorbs and this would produce a special signature in the infrared part of the spectrum. Such a source of infrared radiation would be entirely unlike any naturally occurring one and so provide a unique way of spotting such as advanced civilization.
Because Sun-like stars seem the most obvious homes for advanced civilizations, most studies of Dyson spheres have focused on the properties these kinds of systems would have when built within the habitable zone at a distance of about 1 astronomical unit.
These studies have revealed well-known limitations, however. Such spheres tend to be unstable and require huge volumes of material to build. But most problematic of all, anything or anyone on the surface of these spheres would experience low levels of gravity, a problem that could not easily be solved with known physics.
Today, Ibrahim Semiz and Salim Ogur at Bogazici University in Turkey, define an entirely new class of Dyson sphere. Instead of thinking about a sphere around a Sun-like star, Semiz and Ogur consider a sphere built around a white dwarf.
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Introducing the Shipping Container Gardens From Freight Farms and Cropbox
Ensuring that the food we eat is locally and sustainably grown is not always easy, especially in cities where crop-growing space is at a premium. Firms like Freight Farms and Cropbox, however, have a solution to this problem. They offer shipping containers that are kitted out as self-contained farms.
We've already seen the humble shipping container reappropriated for all sorts of different uses, including as part of an inner city farm concept. Freight Farms and Cropbox actually deliver that concept, albeit more practically and one container at a time.
The containers offered by both companies feature hydroponic technology, which employs a mineral-based solution in which to grow crops rather than soil. This means that the quality of the produce is not affected by prevailing weather conditions and that the conditions can be precisely tailored.
According to Cropbox, such systems use up to 90 percent less water than traditional growing methods. Both firms offer LED lighting in their containers too, which also compares favorably to other lighting methods. Overall, Freight Farms says each one of its containers takes 30,000 kWh of electricity annually to run.
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Amazon Pushes Robopocalypse Further in the Warehouse With a Challenge in Seattle, WA in May
Packets of Oreos, boxes of crayons, and squeaky dog toys will test the limits of robot vision and manipulation in a competition this May. Amazon is organizing the event to spur the development of more nimble-fingered product-packing machines.
Participating robots will earn points by locating products sitting somewhere on a stack of shelves, retrieving them safely, and then packing them into cardboard shipping boxes. Robots that accidentally crush a cookie or drop a toy will have points deducted. The people whose robots earn the most points will win $25,000.
Amazon has already automated some of the work done in its vast fulfillment centers. Robots in a few locations send shelves laden with products over to human workers who then grab and package them. These mobile robots, made by Kiva Systems, a company that Amazon bought in 2012 for $678 million, reduce the distance human workers have to walk in order to find products. However, no robot can yet pick and pack products with the speed and reliability of a human. Industrial robots that are already widespread in several industries are limited to extremely precise, repetitive work in highly controlled environments.
Pete Wurman, chief technology officer of Kiva Systems, says that about 30 teams from academic departments around the world will take part in the challenge, which will be held at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Seattle (ICRA 2015). In each round, robots will be told to pick and pack one of 25 different items from a stack of shelves resembling those found in Amazon’s warehouses. Some teams are developing their own robots, while others are adapting commercially available systems with their own grippers and software.
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The Submarines of Mine Enemies
China updates its Type 093T SSN:
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Construction has started on Arkhangelsk , Russia's latest Yasen-class nuclear-powered multipurpose attack submarine.
The keel laying took place on Submariners' Day, 19 March, at Sevmash Shipyard in Severodvinsk near Arkhangelsk, Northern Russia.
The Yasen-class vessels are the first in Russia to be equipped with fourth-generation nuclear reactors, claimed to have an unrefuelled core life of up to 30 years, and spherical sonars.
link.
DARPA Selects Northrop Grumman, AeroVironment for TERN Ship-board UAV Program Phase 2
DARPA has awarded prime contracts for Phase 2 of Tern, a joint program between DARPA and the U.S. Navy’s Office of Naval Research (ONR). The goal of Tern is to give forward-deployed small ships the ability to serve as mobile launch and recovery sites for medium-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aerial systems (UAS). These systems could provide long-range intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and other capabilities over greater distances and time periods than is possible with current assets, including manned and unmanned helicopters. Further, a capacity to launch and retrieve aircraft on small ships would reduce the need for ground-based airstrips, which require significant dedicated infrastructure and resources. The two prime contractors selected by DARPA are AeroVironment, Inc., and Northrop Grumman Corp.
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My hope would be the TERN would be doing what is being touted for the UCLASS as an ISR platform. A handful of TERNs could be based on the CVN and more scattered in the rest of the battlegroup. The UCLASS would be then be the attack bird it ought to be.
Mars' Jerezo Crater Gives Hints of Two Separate Water Rich Periods in Martian Deep Time
Researchers from Brown University have completed a new analysis of an ancient Martian lake system in Jezero Crater, near the planet's equator. The study finds that the onslaught of water that filled the crater was one of at least two separate periods of water activity in the region surrounding Jezero.
"We can say that this one really well-exposed location makes a strong case for at least two periods of water-related activity in Mars' history," said Tim Goudge, a graduate student at Brown who led the work. "That tells us something really interesting about how early Mars operated."
The study is in press in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.
The ancient lake at Jezero crater was first identified in 2005 by Caleb Fassett, a former Brown graduate student now a professor at Mount Holyoke College. Fassett identified two channels on the northern and western sides of the crater that appear to have supplied it with water. That water eventually overtopped the crater wall on the southern side and flowed out through a third large channel. It's not clear how long the system was active, but seems to have dried out around 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago.
Each of the crater's inlet channels has a delta-like deposit where sediment carried by water was deposited in the lake. In 2008, Bethany Ehlmann, another former Brown graduate student now a professor at Caltech, showed that those fan deposits are full of clay minerals -- a clear sign of alteration by water. The question of how exactly those minerals formed, however, remained open. Did the minerals form in place in the lake, or did they form elsewhere and get transported into the lake?
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Eriphostoma microdon: new Specimens of the Oldest Permian Gorgonopsid Found
New information on the morphology and stratigraphic range of the mid-Permian gorgonopsian Eriphostoma microdon Broom, 1911
Authors:
Kammerer et al
Abstract:
New specimens of the oldest gorgonopsian taxon Eriphostoma microdon from the Pristerognathus Assemblage Zone (AZ) of South Africa significantly improve our understanding of the anatomy of this taxon. The new specimens consist of nearly complete skulls and lower jaws and allow for a more complete diagnosis of Eriphostoma than was possible based on the poorly preserved holotype. In addition to the characteristic palatal dentition and delta-shaped palatine bosses previously recognized for Eriphostoma, this taxon can be diagnosed by the presence of three close-packed upper postcanines occupying an indented margin of the maxilla, a large, tetragonal-to-rounded preparietal bone, and large, paired interorbital depressions expanding outwards in front of the pineal boss. The revised diagnosis permits Eoarctops vanderbyli, Galesuchus gracilis, and Scylacognathus parvus to be synonymized with Eriphostoma microdon, as previously suspected. Among gorgonopsians, Eriphostoma is most similar to Aelurosaurus and Gorgonops, although these similarities are likely plesiomorphic for Gorgonopsia. Eriphostoma ranges from the Tapinocephalus AZ (where it is the only valid gorgonopsian known from the Karoo Basin) through the Pristerognathus AZ (where it co-occurs with Gorgonops).
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Chinese ASAT Test on July 23, 2014 Missed Target
China’s recent test of a missile designed to shoot down satellites in low-earth orbit highlights a growing threat of space weapons, the commander of the U.S. Strategic Command said on Tuesday.
[...]
n China’s space weapons buildup, dubbed “counterspace” arms by the Pentagon, Haney said the United States needs to be ready to deal with attacks on satellites in a future conflict.
“The threat in space, I fundamentally believe, is a real one. It’s been demonstrated,” Haney said, noting China’s 2007 anti-satellite missile test against an orbiting satellite that created tens of thousand of debris pieces.
“They’ve repeated this kind of test last summer, and during that test, fortunately, they did not do a hit-to-kill kind of thing,” he said, noting that no further debris was created.
“But just seeing the nature of these types of activities show how committed they are to a counter-space campaign,” Haney said. “So we have to be ready for any campaign that extends its way into space.”
The July 23 test of the anti-satellite missile was identified by defense officials as the DN-1 anti-satellite interceptor missile. China also has a second anti-satellite (ASAT) missile called the DN-2 that was tested in 2013 and is designed to hit satellites in high-earth orbit—the location of intelligence, navigation, and targeting satellites.
China, which is publicly opposing the development of space weapons, did not identify the test as an anti-satellite missile. Instead, the Defense Ministry described the test as a “land-based anti-missile technology experiment.”
Haney said the July test was similar to the 2007 ASAT test.
“The only difference this time [is that] it did not impact another satellite,” he said. “I’m not convinced that was their intention. But quite frankly, just the whole physics and the demonstration and everything that they did, I’m sure they collected data in order to further make this an operational capability. … This was also a test for capability in low earth orbit.”
Haney was asked what steps the United States is taking in response to the space weapons threat and declined to provide specifics.
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