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Using Folk Music To Track Human Migration

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Traditional Dance Group Of Taiwan's Tsou People
The Tsou are one of the aboriginal Taiwanese groups whose music researchers studied.
小卡 via Wikimedia Commons

Where humans go, they bring their culture with them. Working backward from this, researchers led by Steven Brown of Canada's McMaster University sought to see if similarity in folk music among divergent groups matched their genetic closeness, indicating a shared history.

The scientists compared the folk music of Taiwan's aboriginal, non-ethnically Chinese peoples. Testing 220 songs from nine distinct Taiwanese aboriginal groups, on such points as pitch and rhythm, the researchers were able to track similarities and differences in the groups' music. To demonstrate that variations in the music were a result of migration, the researchers cross-checked the population's mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down from mother to child and is a reliable way to check group genetics.

Tracking migration by music doesn't replace the picture created by genetic mapping, but it does enrich it. Language families are another way to do this--older concepts in similar languages tend to have similar words, but new concepts discovered in isolation will be divergent. One example of this comes from 2012, when scientists tracked the Indo-European family of languages back to a core in Anatolia. This was done by looking for ancestral parts of speech, words early farmers would require to describe their day to day life, like "mother," and then tracking where vocabulary sets diverged, like when farmers in India needed to describe different wildlife and seasons than farmers in Europe.

The study by Brown adds music as another avenue to explore the spread of humans, since musical forms evolve and vary much like language. Brown's team even contends that music is a closer identifier to genetics than language. The Journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B published the findings on November 13.

[LiveScience]


    







Forget Prozac, Psychobiotics Are the Future of Psychiatry

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Psychobiotics
Source: Wikipedia; Modifications: Jason Tetro

For millennia, the human race has sought to combat psychological disorders through the intervention of natural – and eventually synthetic – chemicals. Originally, the sources for these psychoactive substances were the various fruits and flowers, including the Areca tree (betel nut), the poppy (opium), and the coca plant (cocaine). But in the 20th Century, new actives were being created in the lab thanks in part to the discovery of lysergic acid, better known as LSD, in 1938.

By the middle of the 1950s, the psychiatric community was fascinated by the idea that mental health could be restored through the direct use of drugs or in combination with traditional psychotherapy. The idea took off in the 1960s as research continued to elucidate the biology of psychiatry.  It essentially created a new avenue for psychiatric treatment: psychopharmacology. This inevitably led to the synthesis of a new compound, 3-(p-trifluoromethylphenoxy)-N-methyl-3-phenylpropylamine, which eventually became known as fluoxetine, and then, as we have all come to know it, Prozac.  By the late 1980s, it was known by another name:  the wonder drug.    

Today, pharmacologic compounds for psychiatric treatment are numerous and up to 20% of all Americans are taking some type of psychotropic medication totalling some $34 billion dollars annually. While there have been calls for a reduction in use of these chemicals, primarily due to the fact that many are ineffective, there is a constant pressure from the public to have all their problems solved by a pill.

There is a different – and less costly – course to deal with stress and other psychological problems although until recently, there has been little to no attention paid to this option.  The treatment does not involve an individual chemical but rather a plethora of them which act to reduce inflammation, calm stress and bring about a more pleasant mood.  With a new article out this week from the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre in Cork, Ireland, there is even hope that severe and chronic mental health problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may one day be a thing of the past.  

They are called quite simply, Psychobiotics.

According to the authors, Timothy G. Dinan – whose name sounds as catchy as that of another psychiatric pioneer, Timothy F. Leary – Catherine Stanton and John F. Cryan, a psychobiotic is “a live organism that, when ingested in adequate amounts, produces a health benefit in patients suffering from psychiatric illness.”  These live organisms are comprised not only of probiotics but also other bacteria known to produce psychotropic signals such as serotonin and dopamine.

While this concept may raise some eyebrows, this postulate has credence.  There have been several examples in humans where the introduction of a probiotic has led to improvement of mood, anxiety and even chronic fatigue syndrome. But there appears to be a disconnect between the idea of ingesting a bacterium that stays in the gut and psychiatric behavior, which is controlled by the brain.

The answer lies in the fact that many psychiatric illnesses are immunological in nature through chronic low level inflammation. There is a plethora of evidence showing the link between gut microbiota and inflammation and studies on probiotic strains have revealed their ability to modulate inflammation and bring back a healthy immunological function.  In this regard, by controlling inflammation through probiotic administration, there should be an effect of improved psychiatric disposition.  

The authors bring up another reason why psychobiotics are so unique in comparison to most probiotics.  These strains have another incredible ability to modulate the function of the adrenal cortex, which is responsible for controlling anxiety and stress response. Probiotic strains, such as Lactobacillus helveticus and Bifdobacterium longum have shown to reduce levels of stress hormones and maintain a calmer, peaceful state.  There may be a host of other probiotic bacteria with the same ability although testing has been scant at best.

Finally, the last point in support of psychobiotics is the fact that certain strains of bacteria actually produce the chemicals necessary for a happy self.  But as these chemicals cannot find their way into the brain, another route has been found to explain why they work so well.  They stimulate cells in the gut that have the ability to signal the vagus nerve that good chemicals are in the body.  The vagus nerve then submits this information to the brain, which then acts as if the chemicals were there.  If these probiotics were used in combination with those that stimulate the production of opioid and cannabinoid receptors, such as Lactobacillus acidophilus, the result would be more than just a calming effect; there would be a natural high.

There is little doubt that there needs to be more research into the role of psychobiotics in mental health.  Even the authors suggest that clinical studies need to be performed along with more fundamental research.  However, unlike drugs such as Prozac and LSD, which are highly regulated, probiotics are readily available on store shelves.  This in effect could allow everyone to join in a citizen science movement similar to that of the Erowid culture, which focuses on the effect of natural psychoactives.  All that would be needed is a hub and a name, say PSYCHOgerms, in order to identify the psychological wonders – and admittedly, duds – of the probiotic world.  Should this happen, it may help one day to move past the era of pharmapscyhology and head straight into the more natural world or psychobiotics.

    

  

    

    


    






Spain Considers Release Of Genetically Modified Olive Fruit Flies

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A company involved in creating genetically modified mosquitos has another project nearing outdoor testing. The U.K.-based Oxitec has applied to release genetically modified olive fruit flies under netted olive trees in Spain, the BBC reports. The flies are a major pest to olive crops.

The idea is that the flies, all male, will mate with wild olive fruit flies. Any female flies produced from such a union will die as maggots, while any male offspring will carry the deadly gene, just as their fathers did. Over time, this should bring down local olive fruit fly population dramatically.

In a study done in cages, weekly releases of the Oxitec flies crashed the fly population. The added genes are similar to the ones that appear in Oxitec's mosquitos, which the company has tested in Brazil, bringing down one town's dengue-fever-carrying mosquito population by 96 percent.

photo of an olive with holes from olive fruit flies
Olive with Holes from Olive Fruit Flies

"The new program is less about 'does this work?' and more about the first operational roll-out of this technology," Oxitec co-founder Luke Alphey told the New Scientist in September.

Allowing genetically engineered insects to fly free is controversial. (So far, insects are the only genetically modified animals that companies have released into the wild. U.S. officials are considering allowing a company to sell genetically modified salmon that would be farmed in inland tanks.) The BBC talked with Helen Wallace, a spokeswoman from Genewatch, an opposing group. The modified olive fruit flies may have other, unwanted genetic traits, such as pesticide resistance, that they'll spread among wild flies, Wallace said. The group is also concerned about GM maggots living for some time in olives before their genes kill them off.

Oxitec officials say genetically modified olive fruit flies would reduce the need for pesticides, which is good for the environment. The deadly genes should only work in flies, unlike pesticides, which affect many insect species, including ones people may be interested in protecting, such as pollinators.


    






Unpacking Privilege in Science Communication

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"Oops I fell on you, Marie"

At the core of science’s myriad problems culturing diversity of all stripes, there is a common thread: the people with the loudest voices haven’t yet examined their own subconscious biases and privilege. These can be the scientists running labs, committees planning conferences, or even science communicators themselves.

Despite progress in the last century, the most prominent female scientist today is one who won her first Nobel Prize in 1903: Marie Curie. Yet in a recent widely-viewed video made by Joe Hanson for PBS Digital Studios, even she—the representative of all female scientists—doesn’t get the respect she deserves, as her bobblehead doll likeness is harassed and assaulted by Albert Einstein of all people. The video has since been taken down, but the fact that this scene would even take place in our exalted modern age—much less in a video produced by PBS and a respected science communicator—illustrates that sexism still underlies scientific culture and our culture at large.

As someone who recently recognized her own privilege (by recognizing where I lack privilege), I know that it is an immensely personal and individual experience. Unlearning something that you never realized you had learned in the first place takes serious self-awareness and self-criticism. And it takes time.

Most sexism, racism, etc. in society today isn't overt: it's the small things, the comments, facial tics, and pauses that tell you that you are being scrutinized more harshly than people that fit the mold of "normal." Privilege, the flipside of discrimination, isn't just about the benefits you gain from fitting in physically and culturally with the people in power; it's also the mental burdens you don't have to carry and the invisible roadblocks you don't have to cross every day. This isn't anyone’s fault, as this stuff is ingrained from the moment we engage with culture and even infiltrates the minds and actions of the underrepresented groups it harms.

Yet unseen privilege forms the backdrop to this kerfuffle with Joe’s bobbleheads and just about every case that fits the following pattern: white man screws up, women yell at him, man gets defensive, women yell louder, man cowers with hands over his head to ride out the storm. This happens because, while the frustration with Joe in particular is real, it sits atop a larger underlying frustration with society. Living in a world where the kinds of jokes that were made on this segment are considered acceptable—even by “good men” who do good work, like Joe—makes for unrelenting dissatisfaction and silencing. It’s a lifetime of unseen insidious comments and hints that couldn’t be called out built up into one illustrative example that can be called out.

This may seem a bit unfair to Joe and the men who inevitably dig themselves similar holes, to bear the brunt of society’s misogyny. But people with power and audience (Joe’s videos each get tens or hundreds of thousands of viewers) are the ones who most need to be sensitive to privilege. Changing the inherent sexism of society is dependent upon individuals learning how to think differently, understanding why jokes about sexual harassment aren’t acceptable, and nipping them in the bud.

The first thing you have to accept as a privileged person is that you will never understand what it feels like to be not-privileged. But by listening to the stories of those with less privilege, you can learn to see what was previously invisible. The internet has done wonders for speeding up this process. By reading from the comfort of my own home, I’ve begun to understand why someone living in poverty would spend their limited funds on cigarettes, how black men experience a distinct flavor of everyday discrimination, the privilege I have by not being fat, and how, for some black women, having expensive clothing can make the exercises of daily life easier.

Ultimately, your experiences aren’t universal and can't be applied to other people—or their reactions to attempted humor about sexual harassment in YouTube videos, for example. You have to accept that your rationalizations and intentions don't matter, and that whatever attacks you are experiencing in the moment are nothing compared to what many other people experience regularly. It doesn’t matter if you are a “nice guy” who does good work, if you have daughters or a girlfriend, or if you consider yourself an ally.

We all make mistakes. Even those of us who put in the daily work to unlearn sexism and racism screw up. The only way to see those unseen obstacles is for others to call them out.

I understand that it can hurt at first; admitting that you made an error in judgment is hard and the calls for you to apologize and change can feel personal. But once you find the courage to see from another’s perspective, admit your mistake and fix it, it becomes easier every time. That's because it will change the way you see, well, everything. I’ve had to admit to my own inability to understand the world, and accept that I cannot know everything—that no one can. Once you accept that there will always be things you cannot know and plan for, criticism becomes a lot easier to take. No longer hurtful, it now feels like a big, warm hug redirecting me towards helping people as I intended to in the first place.


    






This Sculpture Turns Movement Into Music

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The Treequencer
Trunk O' Funk
Sensors lining the Treequencer allow musicians like Superhuman Happiness (a dance-funk band) to play the instrument by dancing, waving, or just moving around.
Courtesy Red Bull Content Pool

As summer beat down on an outdoor music festival in Brooklyn in June, four men from Portsmouth, Virginia, took shelter beneath a tent. They were one of six teams at McCarren Park hoping to win Red Bull Creation, an annual build-off based on a surprise theme. This year’s challenge was to construct a crowd-friendly, never-before-seen instrument. The catch: Teams had only 72 hours to vie for a $10,000 grand prize.

North Street Labs, as the Virginia team called itself, was taking its third crack at the event in as many years. Last year, the group built a death-defying merry-go-round for a “game of games” contest. This time, Creation’s judges started the countdown clock by asking each team to make a musical instrument capable of composing and playing live music for, and by, the public. North Street Labs’ programmer, Steve Shaffer, reacted with apprehension. “Uh-oh,” he thought, “I’m deaf, and I have to make music.”

Despite Shaffer’s disadvantage—he was born with less than 50 percent hearing—and the entire team’s self-professed lack of musical talent, North Street Labs moved forward in high spirits. A few rounds of beer helped the group settle on an idea: The team would build a giant interactive musical tree, later dubbed the Treequencer. The trunk and branches would be made of steel pipes and outfitted with motion sensors. Dancing around the tree device trigger unique beats and melodies that would emanate from a speaker nested in a birdhouse. 

The men raced to a nearby home-improvement store, bought steel conduit, and returned to the park to tape together a mock-up of the tree’s metallic skeleton. “All the other teams freaked out when they saw that,” Shaffer says. Happy with the basic design, they welded the pipes into a 10-foot-tall frame and rush-ordered electronic parts.

A day into the build, North Street Labs decided to split up the work. Shaffer’s coding background made him the best person to convert sensor data into music, but he couldn’t hear above the din of the festival. “My hearing aids cut off at 120 decibels,” he says. So he retreated to a quiet hotel room and hunkered down. For the next two days, he taped motion sensors to a wall and wrote software to turn sensor output into sound, often dancing around the room to test his work. Meanwhile, his teammates built a birdhouse to contain a speaker, microprocessor, power supply, and music interface. Just before the 72-hour mark, Shaffer rejoined them at the park and hooked up the sensors, finishing the Treequencer with only minutes to spare.

The competition was stiff. One team built a scanner to convert graffiti into sound, another a robotic drum kit, which ultimately won [see “Two More Instruments,” below]. North Street Labs took home only cartloads of Red Bull soft drinks and leftover tools, but the team’s tree did attract musicians: The band Superhuman Happiness recorded a new song and music video with the Treequencer. Someday, Shaffer and his colleagues hope to waterproof their invention, add solar panels to power it, and permanently install it outdoors. “The Treequencer came out better than we envisioned it,” Shaffer says. “If we can make something like that in 72 hours, it makes me wonder what  we could do in a month.”  

How It Works

1. Proximity
Three ultrasonic sensors at the top of the trunk emit inaudible high-frequency sounds and listen to the echoes to determine a person’s proximity. Each sensor triggers a different sound. One elicits piano notes, for example, and tunes them according to distance.

2. Motion
An X-band sensor (similar to those in home alarm systems) measures speed. Shaffer coded the sensor to alter a digital drumbeat based on a dancer’s pace.

3. Computing
Inside the birdhouse, an Arduino microprocessor gathers data from all four sensors and converts it into commands for a MIDI interface, which stores a large library of digital sounds.

4. Power
A 120V power strip feeds electricity to the sensors and a 100-watt speaker harvested from a PA system. Red LEDs that illuminate the birdhouse, meanwhile, get energy from a 250-watt computer power supply.

Time: 72 hours
Cost: About $2,500
 

Two More Instruments

Autoloop
Courtesy Aaron Rogosin/Red Bull Content Pool

Autoloop
MB Labs, a team from Chicago, built a giant electronic drum sequencer during Creation’s 72-hour build-off. It consisted of a robotic drum kit and two discs outfitted with object-detecting cameras. Users could change the rhythm and melody by moving triangles and marbles around the discs. The intricate musical contraption wowed judges, who awarded MB Labs the $10,000 grand prize.
Time: 72 hours
Cost: About $2,000

Erte-tronic Deco Decoder
Lillian Steenblik Hwang

Erte-tronic Deco Decoder
Minneapolis-based 1.21 Jigawatts built a graffiti translator. Players sprayed colorful images onto a roll of paper and pressed a button to feed it through the back of the instrument. Photo sensors scanned the artwork and converted it into data as it moved. Depending on the paint’s color, contrast, and location, the machine triggered differently tuned copper chimes. The device won the People’s Choice Award and earned the team a CubeX 3-D printer as a prize.
Time: 72 hours
Cost: About $1,600

WARNING: We review all our projects before publishing them, but ultimately your safety is your responsibility. Always wear protective gear, take proper safety precautions, and follow all laws and regulations.

This article originally appeared in the Novemberr 2013 issue of Popular Science.


    






Interactive Infographic: Meat Production In 2050

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Developed countries consume about 40 percent of meat worldwide. According to the UN, that figure will fall to 30 percent by 2050, driven by population growth and dietary changes in developing countries, even as total global consumption rises from 280 to 500 million tons. The inclusion of more meat in developing-world diets may help feed undernourished populations, but it will also require existing farmland to be far more productive. If current trends continue to 2050, farmland will grow by only 20 percent, but fertilizer and pesticide use will more than double. To feed a hungry growing world, agricultural ecologists need to know who will be eating more meat, and where. 

Click the year labels to compare today's meat consumption worldwide with projected values for 2050. Infographic by Jan Willem Tulp.

This article originally appeared in the November 2013 issue of Popular Science.


    






Inside The Zumwalt Destroyer

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Zumwalt In Maine
U.S. Navy

The U.S. Navy's Zumwalt destroyer, the most technologically advanced warship ever built and the first of its eponymous class, was set to be christened October 19, but then politics intervened. Late last month, the U.S. Navy finally launched the Zumwalt from a shipyard in Maine (though without a baptismal spray of champagne). Popular Science reported on the Zumwalt's incredible strength and stealth last year; check out the details, including how the warship might have changed the course of a historic Korean War battle, in our October 2012 cover story.

I went to Raytheon's Seapower Capability Center in Portsmouth, RI, to get a look inside the futuristic destroyer. The Zumwalt isn't there; it's waiting at Bath Iron Works in Maine. Instead, I'm here to see a mock-up of the bridge, the command center where sailors send and receive communications, plot courses, direct weapons, and generally see to the operations of the ship.

Mock-up Of Zumwalt Bridge
Raytheon

Apart from the metal staircase on the left side, at first glance the bridge could be mistaken for a modern office of a graphic design firm. Rows of computer stations, each with three monitors, all face toward three large projections of the Zumwalt's location—in this demonstration, the ship is parked off the coast of South Carolina, vigilantly guarding Fort Sumter.

My guides frowned upon Star Trek comparisons.

Besides the usual keyboard, trackball, and touchscreen, each computer station has a joystick. A Raytheon employee told me the joysticks aren't yet mapped to any function, but they could be configured to pilot drones. Poking around the central screen at one of the stations configured for weapons, I found a display map, flight paths, and a series of concentric circles representing incoming vehicles: gray for initiating contact, yellow for warning, and red for opening fire. More information about specific systems (the weapons used, sensors, engines) appears on the side monitors.

And that's the bridge. Nineteen sailors per shift will control the ship from here, and computers will do the rest. The Zumwalt is expected to have a crew of only 154, about half that of the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers currently in service. What makes this possible is a tremendous degree of automation. Everything, from the valves leading to the showers to the turrets for the guns, is hooked into what's called the Total Ship Computing Environment. (My guides frowned upon Star Trek comparisons.) Rather than feeding the raw data from a pressure sensor in a pipe back to an engineer, the relevant computer responds accordingly, and then informs the crew member watching the pipes that the change happened.

Crew members will live relatively well. At the lowest rank, there will be four sailors per stateroom (and bathroom). The ship design calls for libraries and lounges, and there's additional sleeping space and room for other military personnel the Zumwalt might want to take aboard for special purposes. More on that later.

The Brains Of The Zumwalt
Raytheon

All this computing power comes large boxes (see image above) called  Electronic Modular Enclosures. Each of the 16 on board the Zumwalt contains 235 electronics cabinets, consolidating a lot of computer systems into a larger module that's protected from the rigors of life at sea. Inside the enclosures are many parts available to commercial businesses, like IBM Blade servers, which are much cheaper and easier to replace than rugged equipment specially made for naval use. Navy vessels are expected to serve for decades, but computer technology moves much much faster than that. To upgrade the electronics on the Zumwalt, individual modular enclosures can be pulled out, replaced by more modern parts, and reinstalled with much less fuss than renovation usually entails.

The ship's electricity comes from gas powered turbines, which together generate up to 78 megawatts of power. Under normal conditions, the operating systems of the ship and the engines use only 20 of those megawatts, so the ship has 58 left over for weapons. Especially future weapons: Railguns and lasers, both long in development for the Navy, could find a home on board the Zumwalt, which has more than enough electricity to meet these weapons' intense energy demands.

Zumwalt Missile Ports
Raytheon

Of course, future weapons alone do not a warship make. The Zumwalt will enter service armed with two long-range guns that fire guided artillery shells up to 72 miles away, two smaller guns to protect the Zumwalt from ships that get too close, and 80 different missile launch points, grouped in 20 sets of four. You can read more about the Zumwalt's weapon systems in our October 2012 feature.

It shows up on radar as nothing larger than a small fishing vessel.

Having the weapons to hit something is, at most, half the battle. Stealth is just as important. The Zumwalt's weird construction—sharp edges and sloping surfaces—mean that, according to Raytheon, it shows up on radar as nothing larger than a "small fishing vessel," despite being 610 feet long and displacing 15,000 tons of water. It has both the medium-frequency sonar typical of surface ships and the high-frequency sonar common in submarines. The onboard radar can simultaneously perform broad sweeps and narrow scanning. There's also a system of electronic eyes that catch both visual and infrared light and then analyze the images to determine if anything seen is a threat and warrants notifying a sailor on watch.

Besides the tools for naval battle, the Zumwalt has a helipad big enough for either two helicopters or a helicopter and a vertical-takeoff drone. There's enough room on the Zumwalt to house two helicopter or drone crews, as well as room for two helicopters' worth of special forces, if need be. The V-22 Osprey, while a staple of vertical takeoff and tricky deployments, is too large and heavy for the Zumwalt's landing pad, but for most purposes, helicopters will be fine. Thanks to the ship's sensors, defenses, and stealth, it might very well get special forces into otherwise difficult-to-reach places.

 

Zumwalt Undergoing Construction
At Bath Iron Works, Maine
Raytheon

Star Trek Into Darkness, released this summer, features a warship called the Dreadnought that's heavily automated and designed to run on a very minimal crew. When, toward the end of my visit, I asked my hosts at Raytheon what they thought of this comparison, I was met with a hearty chorus of "no comment."

The U.S. Navy, on the other hand, seems ready for the science fiction comparisons. It looks like the first commander of the Zumwalt will be Captain James Kirk.


    






Blue Oil On Bowling Lanes Shows How You Roll

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Chris Barnes
PBA

For a championship series airing early next month, the Professional Bowlers Association will be trying something out of the ordinary: using lanes that look like a Smurf went splat on them.

Technical background: All bowling lanes have a coating of oil, applied through a Zamboni-style machine. On the PBA Tour, a designated lane maintenance team applies the oil in different invisible patterns, intended to affect the difficulty of the game. Your neighborhood bowling place probably applies oil in a way that reduces gutter balls, keeping customers of lower skill levels happy. In the pros, the patterns are applied to be less forgiving, and multiple, different patterns are used to mix it up game to game. In short, oil can make a lane either really forgiving or pro-level difficult because it affects how the ball moves. 

Oil Being Applied
PBA

As the balls roll frame after frame, the oil shifts, and bowlers have to make minute changes to their rolls to account for that, without even really seeing what's happening in the transparent oil. An especially slick or dry area on the lane might send a ball careening into the gutter, or set it up for a strike. For unversed viewers at home--and maybe even the versed ones--it's a mystical, unseen aspect of the game.

Ryan Ciminelli
PBA

Earlier this month, when the finals of the World Series were played, the PBA experimented with a blue additive. It didn't affect the oil beyond color, but did give the lanes an alien tint, and will give viewers a peek into the players' process when it airs on ESPN December 1. With the blue oil, viewers can see where those dry and slick spots are, and tell for the first time how they're affecting strategy in the game. Ideally, that'll give ESPN and the PBA a little more respect for the strenuousness of bowling as a sport, and viewers a new insight into how oil changes play. It could even give bowlers a new edge in their strategy, letting them see exactly where a bowling ball landed when they tossed it, and letting them adjust accordingly. 

Is this something we'll see more of? The PBA is still calling it an "experiment," but if it spices up the sport for viewers, and does anything to improve what have been less-than-stellar TV ratings compared to a heyday in the '80s and '90s, maybe the Smurfification of bowling wouldn't be so bad.


    







Why You Still Can't Sell Me A Car

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Car Crash
Library of Congress

Last month, Popular Science ran an essay I wrote titled "Why You Can't Sell Me A Car." The goal was to stoke important conversations about the future of automobiles, and conversation we got—along with a flurry of hate mail.

I wrote the piece at the behest of Jake Ward, my former boss and editor-in-chief. We'd both seen several stories about automakers taking desperate measures to entice teens and 20- and early-30-somethings, also known as "millennials," to buy cars. General Motors, for example, hired an MTV executive to tell them what might turn the tide. Ford brought on a "generational expert."

Their brilliant solutions to boosting car sales among millennials? Knick-knacks in the dashboard, weirdly colored paints, less pushy car salespeople, and more credit cards.

As a member of the millennial generation, these and other stories irked me. Many of us grew up with landline phones, green-screened (and Internet-free) computers, CRT TVs, the original NES, and hand-written paper letters. Today a tiny slab in our pockets has essentially replaced these technologies while granting instant access to vast troves of human knowledge. We've witnessed these and other techy revolutions with awe, but cars haven't kept pace. Automobiles sold today remain, at their essence, almost frozen in time. Yes, cars are safer. Yes, they're more fuel-efficient. Yes, they're loaded with computing devices. And yes, some are electric. But the transaction of their daily, monotonous use is the same: climb into a metal box, grip a steering wheel, maintain extreme focus, and try not to die.

New technologies woven into cars rarely solve the key problems of routine driving. When they do—especially in the area of safety—human behavior at the wheel often marginalizes the gains. Other new features function primarily as marketing ploys to squeeze consumers for more money. (Note to automakers: Americans have been working harder and earning less since before the recession.) Cars have become increasingly expensive mobile money pits that continue to mar the environment, must be driven by and among error-prone humans, and injure 2.2 million people while killing 30,000 annually. And consider the AAA's sobering report that crashes cost society $300 billion each year.

At the risk of making myself a target for car enthusiasts, I agreed to write the essay, in which I articulated my belief that Detroit automakers can do better: by dramatically rethinking the American car. If a company that doesn't even manufacture automobiles, for example, can coax the vehicles to safely drive themselves on bustling public roadways for more than half a million miles, then there's no excuse for U.S. automakers not to lead the pack in disruptive technologies that could save lives, frustration, money, and the planet.

Since my essay ran, car insurance providers released two large surveys gauging American feelings toward autonomous vehicles. One was an omnibus survey of 1,000 Americans commissioned by the Chubb Group of Insurance Companies. The data suggests that 18 percent of those surveyed would buy a driverless car. A second survey by released by Carinsurance.com surveyed 2,000 Americans; 20 percent said they'd buy a driverless car. (There was no significant difference between millennials and any other age group in desire to purchase a driverless car.)

Most writers have characterized the results as a rejection of autonomous cars by consumers and lack of trust in them. I see it another way: 18 to 20 percent of licensed drivers in the U.S. is about 40 million people—and a very large market.

As for the majority opposed to autonomous vehicles? Opinion doesn't mean they're unsafe or a bad idea. Around the time seatbelt laws were coming into effect, for example, polls showed that most Americans rejected that idea as well. Imagine if a dealership today tried to sell cars without a seatbelt.

I actually like cars. They are marvels of engineering and permit unparalleled personal freedom in travel. But the mass audience I addressed doesn't view cars primarily as hobbies, but as tools: for commuting to and from work, getting the kids to practice, making runs to the grocery store, and so on. I didn't write for those who love hugging the turns of winding roads or pushing 100 mph on desolate highways or wrenching under a classic. I have no desire to pry the steering wheels from the cold, dead hands of such a passionate crowd.

Still, car-loving and car-agnostic readers alike brought up valid points, and it's those I'd like to address to here in hopes of more vibrant conversation. Even if it means more hate mail.

Note: The following boldfaced statements are edited composites of the many reactions that readers posted online, emailed to Popular Science, and sent the author.

***

You don't speak for me and I'm a millennial. I love cars just the way they are.

One of the better days of my life was driving a 1976 Porsche 930 Turbo Carrera for the first time (to the palm-sweating terror of my future wife in the passenger seat). It was a beautiful machine that a relative had spent years restoring. I never questioned why he loved the car because I didn't have to; I understood.

Whatever feelings you might have toward a high-performance vintage vehicle, we can probably agree to dislike one thing about cars: the grind of routine travel. Daily commutes are boring, take time, cost money, and can kill us.

There was a time when Popular Science's automotive fluff pieces were about flying cars. It’s kind of sad to see that navel-gazing millennials won’t even carry that torch.

Terrafugia in Flight
This flying car will be available for purchase next year.
Terrafugia
Flying cars descended out of popular imagination and landed a while ago. Sure, they're still horrendously expensive and haven't yet fulfilled the promise of closing the gap between personal ground and air transportation, but they've indeed been around for years. One even earned regulatory clearances in 2011 for both the road and the sky.

As for fluff? If you think transportation technologies that stand to dramatically transform the modern world are fluffy, then Popular Science will continue to carry its fluffy torch.

So you want to be chauffeured around. Like many in your generation, you want to pass off your duties/responsibilities to someone or something else. (That's called dependence.) Oh, poor you—driving is too hard and too dangerous. When history is written, your generation will be known as the “entitlement generation.”

Every U.S. generation in recent history hears similar complaints about its entitlement. It's a cranky, worn-out, get-off-my-lawn meme that is, frankly, meaningless. So let's retire it and actually have a conversation.

Suppose you need to send a simple message to a few dozen friends and family. Would you use a pencil, paper, envelopes, and stamps for each message—or just fire off one email and reach everyone at once? I'd prefer to have both options, but I'd use the latter on most occasions—thus saving myself the time and trouble of the former. Another question: Would you prefer to ride in an airplane equipped with autopilot that can land itself at the nearest runway during an emergency? Or a classic one that can't if a pilot passes out in the cockpit?

The point is that we all take numerous technological advancements for granted at every turn. It's not that big of a stretch or entitlement to desire the option of autonomous driving when it's now tantalizingly possible and could presumably save countless lives.

Speaking of which, driving isn't too hard for me—but it certainly is dangerous. I don't want to accidentally hurt or kill anyone, let alone damage another's property, and I don't want anyone to break my stuff and/or maim me. Humans did not evolve to operate complex machinery at high speeds. Artificial intelligence can now command a vehicle more safely than trained professional drivers. If wanting such a thing as an option makes me entitled, then I'll proudly wear that badge.

Gas wasn't a dollar a gallon when you started driving. What alternate universe do you live in?

Actually, it was. Below is a chart of the average consumer price index for unleaded gasoline for at the time I started driving. Also note that I grew up in a Midwestern suburb flanked by cornfields and horse farms (where gas is typically cheaper than in cities).

Consumer Price Index Of Unleaded Gas
Bureau of Labor Statistics

What you've described is a train/bus/cab/[insert public transportation option].

Yes and no.

Trains have fixed routes, offer little privacy, and operate on their own schedules—not our whims. Buses are similar: fixed routes, fixed schedules, no privacy. Cabs? Limited service radius, expensive, no privacy, and often harbor strange smells.

Autonomous cars might traverse almost any road, yet with as much flexibility and privacy and ownership options as today's vehicles. One would effectively operate as a private train with nearly unlimited destination and schedule possibilities. And presumably you'll be able to change your mind mid-drive by taking the wheel or calling out a new destination.

This kind of independence is a tenet of U.S. car culture, and it's probably why "automated highway systems" and the other tightly controlled driverless car schemes of yesteryear never took off. I believe there's a bright future for commuters and car nuts alike—one where everyone can have their cake and eat it, too. (Note, however, that it will probably be much easier for cops to catch hoons speeding in a sea of well-behaved autos.)

You want all of us to adhere to your green philosophy. You don’t want to drive, and you don’t want the rest of us to drive either—but some of us enjoy it.

Yes to the green philosophy, which is based on decades of back-breaking scientific work. If you have a viable alternative strategy to building and organizing knowledge, and basing your positions off of that, I'm all ears. Otherwise what's left for our children, and their children, and so on, may not be much.

More than a few people rebuked my "attack" on driving (I never launched one), stated that I hate cars (I don't), and told me to commit suicide/shove leaky car batteries up my ass/etc. (please seek mental health counseling, angry YouTube users). It seems these critics only saw a video monologue—an off-the-cuff summary of my already condensed essay—and raised hell over that.

Alas. You can drive all you want. Keep your mint '69 Camaro. Or buy a new internal-combusion car if driverless electrics bore you. My point is that it's time for average, daily-commute consumers to have the option of purchasing a car that has a semi- or fully autonomous driving mode and affects the environment as little as possible. We shouldn't be stuck choosing only models that exacerbate already deep climatological and other environmental problems that we and our forebears have created.

Dave Mosher will buy a car when and only when the car drives itself, is not made of metal or plastic, is electric and recharges instantly from a completely rebuilt countrywide power grid, and costs 10 cents to purchase. Good thing he doesn't have any unrealistic expectations or anything.

My dig at materials in the essay was about sustainability, sourcing, and overall environmental impact. As critics have pointed out, the good news is that autos are some of the most-recycled objects in the world, with about 95 percent ending up in salvage yards. Once useful parts are removed and sold the rest is typically crushed in a compactor, shredded, and recycled. Even spare change stuck to the floor with gum can find a home in future products.

Unfortunately, about a quarter of a car's mass still goes into landfills. Most of that material is plastic. Fortunately, sourcing for plastic these days is improving, new recycling technologies are maturing, and more biodegradable formulations are reaching larger and larger markets.

Instant charging: Getting there almost certainly requires ditching slow-charging, prone-to-explode, questionably sourced chemical batteries. The potential replacements? So-called "super" or "ultra" capacitors, which technologists promise us will charge nearly instantly, have tremendous storage capacity, and won't degrade over time.

Sure, supercapacitors almost always seem right over the horizon ("in five to 10 years" is a common line), but one reason I'm feeling more optimistic these days is ongoing research into graphene, which won its discoverer a Nobel prize for good reason. Graphene is an atom-thick honeycomb-like carbon lattice that is very conductive and capable of storing tremendous amounts of energy. It was once notoriously difficult to manufacture, but now you can make some with pencils and tape or a CD label printer.

My own power supply dreams aside, the U.S. electrical grid already needs an extensive overhaul. It wasn't designed to handle modern uses, loads, or catastrophes. Small disruptions can and often do cascade into epic failures. And may Zeus help us if a truly significant disruption, such as a powerful solar storm, blasts the Earth. Why not solve multiple significant problems in one go? Car manufacturers could put serious force behind the push to secure energy sources for their next-generation vehicles while easing big environmental, supply, and reliability problems.

The U.S. must start thinking big and thinking differently about how, where, and when to get renewable energy, and by what means to transport and store it. It's probably unnecessary to erect eye-soring forests of wind farms everywhere; we could pipe in electricity generated by solar collectors or wave generators from halfway across the country. With the right resources, it may even be possible to beam it down from space. The future is wide open for innovation and implementation.

FCC.gov
Costs: Any truly disruptive technology is horrendously expensive when it first reaches the market. Then, inevitably, the price goes down—often way, way down. The first cell phones, for example, cost thousands of dollars. Now you can get a prepaid burner phone for less than $20. We should expect self-driving cars to follow a similar trend but I admit that, for now, the complexity and cost of these systems is nothing to sneeze at. Consider, for example, the $80,000-or-so cost of the LIDAR system that Google uses—ouch.

Mass production and consumer demand will help reduce costs, plus whatever unknown advancements occur between now and when Detroit sells its first semi-autonomous model (a Toyota representative told me recently that he expects semi-autonomy to be common in 10 years and full autonomy within 20). Another thing to consider is long-term savings on insurance, deductibles, maintenance, and fuel. Then you weigh the benefits of lower stress, increased work productivity, and—dare I say it?—more sleep.

As for my unrealistic expectations, I'll say it multiple times: I never said it would be easy. My characterization of "that's all you have to do" was meant to be tongue-in-cheek. It's going to take extremely hard work in the form of expensive R&D, strong incentives/subsidies, overhaul of federal and state laws, favorable court decisions and legal reviews, and pervasive consumer education, among other things. Automakers are sitting on a lot of money and influence that can help bang the drums—and ultimately to their benefit as well as that of the rest of the world.

To build your rosy world of the future, auto manufacturers will have to take on incredible research and development costs. That's a foolhardy demand at best.

The biggest automakers already spend billions of dollars on R&D, consistently placing them among the top 20 companies that invest in research annually. Most of them are dipping into these war chests to develop at least semi-autonomous driving systems.

So why am I bent out of shape? First, those budgets aren't that big, relatively speaking; they usually comproise single-digit percentages of an automaker's revenue. Second, the recent trend for U.S. automakers is to spend less on R&D ("don't eat your children," as the saying goes). Third, and perhaps the most important—yet the most fuzzy—is how that R&D money gets spent.

I'd wager the amount appropriated to developing full autonomy is small, with most R&D dollars going toward legacy technologies and programs—not reimagining the future of the private passenger automobile.

I never said it'd be easy. I recognize that developing autonomous vehicles is extraordinarily difficult work that's fraught with obstacles (physical ones notwithstanding). But I'm rooting for U.S. auto manufacturers. I think they have the financial and intellectual capital to get it done, and I'm not alone in my optimism about the future. Just look at what Daimler AG (via Mercedes-Benz) can do today.

If U.S. automakers can't find money to spend on full autonomy, here's one idea: Divert a fraction of their multi-billion-dollar advertising and marketing budgets. I enjoy Will Ferrell's humor as much as the next person, but do we really need Ron Burgundy to shill us cars? I'd rather see tangible innovation in autonomy and energy storage, and faster.

Get rid of nuclear and fossil fuels and rely solely only on renewables? Good luck. That'll cost hundreds of billions worth of investment over decades, and car manufacturers can't get it done. A better idea is to encourage the growth of natural gas and buy time to develop next-generation energy technologies.

The video gives the impression that only renewable energy will satisfy me—and that's not the case. It may seem noble to end the use of fossil fuels entirely, but it's not possible, practical, or advisable right now. 

As we reported in the June 2013 issue of Popular Science, the path to American energy independence (and a greener world) is at least a few decades away. The situation is complicated, as with most things in life. We'll need to develop a mixture of solar, ocean, wind, energy from waste, and, yes, fossil fuel technologies to get there.

A key part of the energy picture—especially in discussing driverless electric cars—is to highlight is the enormous demand by transportation for petroleum. In fact, moving things around with internal combustion engines takes up nearly a quarter of the entire U.S. energy budget.

Automakers have serious clout among oil companies and the government, and that will only be more true if they begin abandoning ICEs. They could push for vast improvements to the grid, both in basic infrastructure and sources of renewable energy. It may sound strange now, but car companies could eventually deal major blows to the problems of fossil fuel dependence and climate change.

lanl.gov
Nuclear: I'm not advocating we give it the boot. However, our reliance on dated pressurized water reactor technologies needs to end. The constant generation of waste that takes millions of years to become safe is one issue. Fukushima and other meltdowns have clearly demonstrated the other, which is that these kinds of reactors are not walk-away safe.

There are almost certainly better ways to extract energy from nuclear materials. Thorium molten salt reactors, for example, promise to chew through yesterday's nuclear waste, turn the radioactive chaff of rare-earth oxide mines into fuel, and safely shut down on their own (even if—for some strange reason—all humans instantly vanished from Earth). They might even ease or end NASA's planetary exploration woes by generating plutonium-238.

Unfortunately, the redevelopment and refinement of the technology could cost billions of dollars, and the economics of the thorium supply remain untested.

Natural gas, Obama's bridge-to-the-future energy source, was a nice idea but it is turning into a nightmare. Aside from the known problems with fracking—tainted water sources, financial and property abuses, and earthquakes, to name a few—there is a much larger threat posed by extracting gas from the ground: rampant leaks. Unless the holes in ancient pipes for delivering gas are plugged across the U.S., the methane-laced gas leaking from pipes stands to accelerate climate change more than any other fossil fuel used today.

You wrote that automakers got the government to build highways, but that's not true; war and commerce did.

Generalizing is too often a necessary evil in magazine writing, but I never discounted the roles of war (rapidly mobilizing military resources) or economic progress (rapidly moving products and materials) in getting highways built. Rather, I chose to point out the most powerful player in the tight space I was given.

Yes, German highways made a big impression on Eisenhower during World War II. Yes, the Cold War's nuclear threats increased the desire to have some means to quickly evacuate cities and move around the chess pieces of war. And yes, rural regions wanted access to the commerces of big cities via extensive roadways.

Automakers, however, were instrumental in uniting these interests and making highways happen through decades of lobbying (and the undermining of public transportation systems). It's not hard to understand their motivation. More roads meant more cars, more customers, and more money.

If autonomous cars become the norm, no one will know how to drive if a system fails.

Most people can't drive already, so what's the problem?

Jokes aside, this is a valid concern—that is, if lawmakers abandon rigorous tests for driver's licenses. Even if self-driving cars become the norm, there will always be a human desire to grab the wheel and override the docile nature of an autonomous vehicle. I suspect that pressure from automakers and motorheads alike will ensure that manual driving is a standard feature and prevent licenses from vanishing.

Driverless cars will never happen because the liability risks to manufacturers will be too great. They will go bankrupt being held accountable for any accidents.

Take The Wheel
Jonathan Carlson
People have dreamt up all kinds of trolley problem scenarios for driverless cars as a means of (mentally) exploring their safety features and ethics. I'll make one up now as an example: An autonomous car is driving 55 mph down a two-lane highway. A group of five children leap into the car's lane while a single kid steps into the oncoming traffic lane at the same time. There isn't enough distance to brake to a full stop. What will the car do? a) Swerve, brake, and hit the one kid; b) brake hard and hit the five children; c) steer into a ditch, possibly killing the driver and passengers; or d) hand control back to the driver, allowing him or her to choose a fate?

My guess is as good as anyone's, but others surmise that the best answer to this scenario is another question: Who gets sued?

Automakers' billions, compared to an individual's insurance policy, makes the answer seem fairly clear. Yet the legal precedent for driverless cars is essentially nonexistent. This may partly explain U.S. automakers' hesitance to plow forward with such technologies, i.e. nobody wants their car to be the first to wreck in an increasingly litigious nation. After all, the U.S. spends more than 2 percent of the GDP on tort litigation annually.

On the upside, there's room for intense discussion and—for the boldest and brightest among us—an opportunity to blaze a responsible path forward.

I'll give Patrick Lin the final word on this, since his ethics-of-autonomous-cars piece at TheAtlantic.com captures this well:

We don’t really know what our robot-car future will look like, but we can already see that much work needs to be done. Part of the problem is our lack of imagination. Brookings Institution director Peter W. Singer said, “We are still at the ‘horseless carriage’ stage of this technology, describing these technologies as what they are not, rather than wrestling with what they truly are.” As it applies here, robots aren’t merely replacing human drivers, just as human drivers in the first automobiles weren’t simply replacing horses: The impact of automating transportation will change society in radical ways, and ethics can help guide it.


    






Big Pic: A Beautiful Look At Parasitic Worms

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Worms
Courtesy Bo Wang and Phillip Newmark, HHMI/University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Two hundred fifty million people worldwide require treatment for schistosomiasis, also known as bilharzia, a disease that ravages internal organs. Schistosomiasis is caused by parasitic flatworms that cycle between two hosts: freshwater snails and humans. Seeking ways to stop the transmission, biologists at the University of Illinois are studying the worm’s reproduction. This summer, they dyed and sectioned snail muscle tissue. Inside, they saw flatworm stem cells, which develop into thousands of larvae about 300 micrometers long. This image is color-coded to show relative depth; closer objects glow orange and more distant objects, green. Now, the scientists are studying how the stem cells develop, which could lead to ways to halt the parasite’s growth.

This article originally appeared in the December 2013 issue of Popular Science.


    






The Hand Tool Family Tree [Infographic]

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So you misplaced your screwdriver, or vernier caliper, or veiner gouge. The worst, right? 

If only everything were as organized as this ridiculously comprehensive infographic of more than 300 hand tools, from the common to the, uh, extensive sub-family of various hand files. 

A project from the always great designers at Pop Chart Lab, (previously: this spiral of early Nintendo games) the chart was just released and is called, simply, the Chart of Hand Tools. The tools are all grouped intuitively by what you use them for. ("Tools That Divide" is a bad poetry collection waiting to happen.)

They're selling prints for $26 now, if you're looking for a gift for the carpentry or optical-bevel protractor enthusiast in your life. 

The Chart of Hand Tools
Pop Chart Lab
Tools That Measure
Pop Chart Lab

Tools That Mark
Pop Chart Lab

Tools That Divide
Pop Chart Lab

    






What A Penguin Looks Like On A Heat Map

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Penguin Heat Map
courtesy Université de Strasbourg and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Strasbourg, France

As if their home in Antarctica weren’t cold enough, emperor penguins allow their exteriors to drop at least 7°F below their surroundings. The change helps the penguins stay warm, a recent paper showed. When the outer layer of feathers radiates heat to the sky, it becomes colder than its immediate environment, so heat flows back in. The cycle keeps the temperature underneath the plumage constant—and the penguin alive.

This article originally appeared in the December 2013 issue of Popular Science.


    






What Does A Navy Do?

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U.S. Navy Photo
Welcome to ShipShape, a blog that will attempt to demystify the ships and systems that ride on and under the open ocean. As this blog progresses we'll tackle some of the how's and why's of navies and their roles in the world and spend time tackling  assumptions of how the ocean works.

Future topics will include: Why put nuclear power in a submarine? What happened to the battleship? How does a ship refuel at sea? What's the biggest modern threat to a ship? And how does a missile or a torpedo know where it is and where it's going?

But before getting to specifics in coming posts, let's take a minute to think about what a navy does.
The U.S. Navy - by far the world's largest - has a hard time defining what they do themselves. So far the best that Madison Avenue has been able to come up with is the current slogan, "America's Global Force for Good."

It's a frustratingly incomplete synopsis.

America established its first international naval force with six frigates authorized in 1794 to keep U.S. merchant shipping safe as the young country expanded.

Like the British Royal Navy before it, the U.S. Navy was tied to commerce more so than any other military force and - according to George Washington - entwined with the very fabric of what America hoped to be.

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious," Washington wrote to Marquis de Lafayette in 1781.

For America, that intimate connection to the workings of the global economy made it the most internationally visible U.S. military component but at the same time, the most misunderstood.

Armies are easy to understand. They are about ownership of real estate by possession. They break things until the opposition force surrenders and (sometimes) leave. Air forces - especially the U.S. Air Force - serve as a military version of FedEx with just-in-time deliverers of troops, supplies and bombs. They also have the ability to strike targets from great distances and change the scope of a battlefield.

Navies are far more complex in almost every aspect, from their roles in peacetime to how they move across the water to how they communicate with the disparate parts of their organizations. A navy brings a mix of influences that range from the soft power of maritime law enforcement and humanitarian assistance and the hard power of raw military might. Instead of owning dirt, navies operate primarily in international waters. Those waters are free to use for all and projecting influence while maintaining access for commerce is a trickier business than a garrison on a hill.

As the world grows closer knit through the tons of commerce that flows across the water, navies are becoming more important in their roles and influences.

So what's the conglomeration of ships, submarines and aircraft supposed to do?

In one part they keep the international waterways free and clear so the business of the world can go on, think about the international struggle with piracy of the coast of Somalia.

They can also strike threats faster and more completely around the world than any other part of the military, think the deluge of Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles that rained down on Libya in 2011 or the threat of similar strikes off of Syria. There's also much to be said about the aircraft carrier, one the most potent weapons of modern warfare that has the ability to park in international waters and how its mere presence can change the course of a conflict.

That balance between hard and soft power makes a navy's work tricky. Added to the complexity is establishing ships and chains of supplies and fuel to allow navies to operate as away teams - a term the U.S. Navy leadership is fond of using. With international involvement in the war in Afghanistan coming to a close, national attention is shifting toward the sea and we'll be here to help figure it out.


    






Microscope Images Show Topography Of Tears

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Tears of ending and beginning
Copyright Rose-Lynn Fisher, 2013

We cry for various reasons: happiness, sadness, cutting onions. But almost invariably, we wipe away those tears or they are otherwise dried up, washed away or discarded. But photographer Rose-Lynn Fisher decided to do just the opposite in her latest project, Topography of Tears. As Smithsonian's blog details, Fisher was curious to see what tears looked like up close, and so she caught one on a slide and realized it wasn't unlike looking at a landscape from above, with veiny rivers, craggy mountains, and rolling valleys. 

Onion Tears
Copyright Rose-Lynn Fisher, 2013

The tears we shed are pretty definitively human—very few, if any, other animals cry for emotional reasons. In addition to tears that result from crying, our ducts also produce basal and reflex tears. The first of which keep your eyeballs moist, and the latter is caused by things like the aforementioned onions, pepper spray, or other irritants. 

Over the course of multiple years, Fisher photographed more than 100 tears from herself and others—including a newborn baby. You can read more about the project here, and explore Fisher's other work that features images such as microscope images of bees and bones here

 

 


    






A Map Of Winds All Over The World

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model image of wind speeds all over the world
Global Winds, Imaged in the GEOS-5 Nature Run
William Putman/NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Aeolus, is that you? This is a map of winds on Earth, created from a mathematical model made by NASA. Scientists ran a complete simulation using the model, representing the movement of winds and other atmospheric phenomena on Earth from May 2005 to May 2007. This image shows one snapshot from that two-year "Nature Run."

"The idea is to provide a high-resolution version of what the atmosphere looks like at any given time," Bill Putnam, one of the creators of the model, tells Popular Science.

You can see surface winds—the stuff you feel, standing there on the surface of the Earth as the mere mortal you are—in white. The bright white circles you see over the Atlantic Ocean and the East China Sea are cyclones. Meanwhile, the colored streaks represent upper-level winds at an elevation about 33,000 feet above the surface of the Earth. The upper-level winds' colors represent their speeds, which range from 0 to 175 meters per second (a little more than 390 miles per hour). The red winds are the fastest.

NASA's satellites gather plenty of real-world data about the winds and other atmospheric phenomena on Earth. This data go into the model, called the Goddard Earth Observing System Model or GEOS-5, four times a day. Additional calculations in the model then help fill in swaths of the globe that satellites don't happen to cover, Putnam says.

GEOS-5 also models surface temperatures on Earth; precipitation; and the movement of dust, sea salt, carbon and sulfates all over the globe. You can see results for those things here.


    







Is Inspiration Enough to Launch Inspiration Mars?

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In 2001, Dennis Tito used his millions to buy a seat on a Soyuz spacecraft for an eight-day visit to the International Space Station. On February 27 of this year, he announced his plan to foot a large portion of the bill for Inspiration Mars, a flyby mission to the red planet. On Wednesday in front of a House Committee on Space, he called for NASA to pick up the slack to see his mission fly, both financially and technologically. Inspiration Mars had some obvious problems from the start, but this latest development looks a little like it might be the first nail in the mission’s coffin.  

Tito unveiled Inspiration Mars earlier this year as a philanthropic mission; technological and scientific ends were secondary to the primary goal of inspiring the nation to aspire to great things in space once again. The mission itself is fairly straightforward. A crew of two (a married, middle-aged, heterosexual couple) will launch in January of 2018, fly to Mars, and whip around the planet’s far side using gravity to boost them back to Earth. The mission isn’t designed to land on Mars of even go into orbit. It would be a 501 day flight with a very short but exciting flyby around one of our neighbours.  

Apollo 8's famous Earthrise
NASA
Throughout February’s press conference, Tito and his panel made reference to Apollo 8, the second manned mission of the Apollo program that took half a spacecraft (the command and service modules without the lunar module) to the Moon. But unlike the proposed Inspiration Mars, Apollo 8 went into orbit around its target; NASA wasn’t about to go all the way to the Moon and not test the main service propulsion engine. But Apollo 8 was never about philanthropy. It was about keeping pace on the way to the Moon after the Apollo 1 fire. Apollo 7 proved the rebuilt Apollo Block II Command and Service Module was flight ready in October of 1968 but the lunar module was far from ready to fly. Rather than waste time waiting, NASA moved forward with a revised flight schedule. That Apollo 8 was a fantastic, successful, and a wonderfully inspirational mission, the mission that gave us the famous Earthrise picture, was the happy fallout.  

Differences between Apollo 8 and Inspiration Mars aside, the Apollo program does provide a good model for what Tito is trying to do with his mission. It also helps illuminate some of its major problems. When, in 1961, Apollo became the program to land men on the Moon within in the decade, NASA had about eight years to make it happen. Though the technology didn’t exist, the right people knew what technology they would have to design, test, and fly to achieve the goal. The F-1 engines, the guidance system, and even the basic spacecraft were already on the drawing board or under development. When Tito announced inspiration, he had almost six years to make it happen. What was missing from the proposal when it was presented was details about those thing: the rocket, the spacecraft, and all the associated systems.  

Funding Inspiration Mars was another issue that was unclear from the start. At the outset, Tito said he would to finance the first two years of the program with about $300 million of his own money. The remaining $700 million (the predicted total cost for the mission that will surely rise if it gets going was set at a little under $1 billion) was to be culled through crowdsourcing efforts and corporate sponsorship. Practical matters, too, was unclear – consumables like food and oxygen, waste storage or disposal, and protection against micrometeoroids and radiation on a nearly two year long voyage.  

An artist's concept of SLS and Orion inside the VAB
NASA/MSFC

Now it looks like Tito might have counted his chickens before they hatched. The original proposal called for a simple Inspiration Mars flight that a commercial spacecraft could handle. Turns out, the mission is more complex than simply launching on a set trajectory with enough energy to let Sir Isaac Newton take the wheel. If Inspiration Mars is going to fly, particularly if it’s going to take advantage of the 2018 launch window, it’s going to need NASA technology. The Space Launch System rocket the agency is currently developing will have a Dual Use Upper Stage capable of launching Inspiration Mars to the red planet. NASA’s Orion spacecraft, a modern-day Apollo-style capsule spacecraft, has been designed with long duration missions and high-speed Earth reentry in mind, exactly what an Inspiration Mars spacecraft is going to have to deal with.  

And so, Tito has put out the call to NASA: “We submit for the consideration of the American people, the President, Congress, and NASA a new mission. We propose to send a spacecraft bearing two astronauts, a man and woman, to the far side of Mars and return them to Earth, a voyage of 314 million miles in 501 days, in collaboration with NASA, in the name of America, and for the good of humanity.”   If NASA were to take up the challenge, the agency would have to make some fast decisions to keep pace with the 2018 deadline. If not, there’s a second option to fly an 80-day longer mission in 2021; it’s Tito’s second choice, but better than not going at all.  

Unfortunately, NASA has little if any financial wiggle room these days. The agency’s budget has been shrinking consistently in recent years and programs have been slashed in the name of keeping the James Webb Space Telescope on track for its own launch date (which keeps slipping). Taking on another major mission right now could have disastrous results. Apollo worked in the time frame it did because the government threw as much money at NASA as it needed to make it happen. We’re not going to see the same thing happen with this kind of mission to Mars.  

But the financial side is only part of the problem. The other, and arguably bigger problem is the rational of going at all. Tito’s take is that this partnership with NASA would be done in the name of America for the good of humanity. “The endeavor is not motivated by business desires, but to inspire Americans in a bold adventure in space that reinvigorates US space exploration.”  

An artist's concept of Inspiration Mars
Inspiration Mars

As lovely as it may sound, inspiration doesn’t make rockets fly. Inspiration Mars is primed to be a crash program, which is exactly what Apollo was. In getting to the Moon, NASA took the easiest path. The decision to go with lunar orbit rendezvous as a mission mode (having the smaller lunar module land while the bulk of the spacecraft and the bulk of its fuel stayed in orbit) was brilliant in that it facilitated getting to the Moon within the decade, but the technology wasn’t applicable to other missions. And while there were studies that explored the possibility of sending a mission to Venus or Mars with Apollo hardware, the rationale to go was never there; these proposals were never more than “thought missions.” 

As though to offer some incentive, Tito said that the technologies developed towards Inspiration Mars will belong to NASA, giving the agency the freedom to use them towards other space goals. But if most of Apollo was shelved after the program was cancelled, why should we expect to see the technology behind a crash Mars program live on beyond its goal?  

A flyby, or better yet an Apollo 8-style Mars orbital mission, would certainly be a good step towards the goal of landing men on the red planet. It would be great to have scientists in orbit controlling a rover in real time! But these first steps need to be done in a systematic way that feeds into a longer term progam or generates some widely applicable technology. If private industry couldn’t see this grand crash-program through, it’s unlikely the government is going to be the benefactor of Tito’s dreams. And a forward thinking agency is probably unlikely to take on a short-term crash program.  

Sources/Further Reading: Inspiration Mars Summary; Tito’s written testimony; Alan Boyle on NBC; Al Jazeera English; Motherboard; Jason Koebler on Motherboard


    






Dogs Watch Human Interactions To Assess Quality Of Treats

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photo of a domestic dog
Watchful
Gandee Vasan/Getty Images

Ever get that feeling you're being watched? Well, if you're a dog-owner, you may have a point. Dogs are able to watch people's interactions with one another to determine who holds yummier treats, according to a new study.

This study joins others that show dogs are keen observers of human behaviors and emotions. It offers evidence dogs use information not only from people's direct interactions with them, but also their interactions with one another, a notion that's more controversial.

In the study, dogs watched a man ask two women for some of their cornflakes. Both women gave the man cornflakes when he asked, but in response to one woman, the man enthused about how delicious the cornflakes were. In response to the other woman, he gave the cornflakes back and called them gross (in Spanish; the study was conducted in Argentina). After these interactions, the man left and an assistant holding the dog let the dog go. While many dogs didn't approach either cornflake-munching woman, the dogs that did have a preference tended to prefer the woman with the yummier cereal.

a series of photos from the dog-watching experiment
Cornflake Experiment
A. A man enthuses about tasty cornflakes from one woman. B. The man turns his back to the "gross" cornflakes from the other woman. C. A dog prefers the woman with the tastier flakes.
© 2013 Freidin et al. Image appeared in PLOS One. Distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.

Other studies of domestic dogs' people-watching ability have found pups are able to tell the difference between happy and neutral faces in their owners. They prefer people who give others food when asked over people who don't give others food. And in one study, dogs oriented toward crying people more often than toward talking or humming people. When they saw a stranger crying, they sniffed, nuzzled and licked the stranger.

So how much do dogs really understand about the humans around them? That's not totally settled yet. In a weird twist to the Argentine study above, when the researchers tried an experiment in which they put two plates of cornflakes on high pedestals and had a man react to each plate, dogs didn't preferentially approach the tastier plate afterward. You could say dogs watch for the interaction between two people, not just how a person reacts. Yet a previous study found dogs will choose boxes that people reacted to happily, but not boxes people reacted to with a disgusted face.

Well, either way, you can be sure Fluffs is keeping an eye on you, to the best of her ability.

The study was published in the journal PLOS One.


    






China Tests New Stealth Drone

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Sharp Sword On The Runway
Global Times

Yesterday, China's new stealth drone flew for the first time, according to Chinese state media. The drone is an unmanned flying wedge, similar to American flying wedges like the RQ-170 and the U.S. Navy's experimental X-47B. It bears a striking resemblance to Russia's MiG Skat drone. Named Li Jan, or "Sharp Sword," the drone flew for about 20 minutes, and set off a flurry of news coverage about China's growingmilitary powerin the region.

Long rumored to be in development, the Li Jan was revealed last May, after masquerading as a college project.

Much like Iran's new Fotros drone, the Li Jan's capabilities are largely dependent on how well the rest of the People's Liberation Army Air Force (or People's Liberation Army Navy; the Li Jan is being considered for both services) can support it. The flying wing and stealth shape of the Li Jan give it some increased freedom to move without detection, but don't expect China to start stealth drone strikes with impunity any time soon. Japan, currently locked in a long-running dispute with China over the uninhabited Senkaku/Daiyo Islands claimed by both nations, has already asserted its right to shoot down any drones that enter Japanese airspace.

Here's a shot of the Sharp Sword in flight, posted by China's state-run Global Times:

Sharp Sword In Flight
Global Times

    






Sympathy For The Metal: Almost Human Is The Pro-Robot Propaganda We Need

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Fox

 

Fifteen minutes into the series premiere of Almost Human, a robot gets casually pushed out of a moving car. He, or maybe it’s an it, despite the fact that the MX model of police bot has a distinctly male face and male voice, tumbles onto the highway and is immediately pulverized by other vehicles. The show’s protagonist, Detective John Kennex (played by Karl Urban) doesn’t register anything. Not the dark pleasure of someone whose just destroyed an uppity printer, or the momentary panic that might follow destroying millions of dollars (one can only assume) worth of property, while also endangering the driving public. He pulls the passenger-side door shut, and goes about his grizzled business.

As narrative beats go, this brief bit of robocide gets a lot done. It establishes that Kennex does not like androids, who, during the time he’s spent in a coma, have become mandatory partners for all human cops. It also queues up his next partner, a mothballed model whose entire line was pulled from service because of its aggravating tendency to experience feelings, and, correspondingly, suffer the occasional emotional breakdown. DRN, pronounced Dorian (played by Michael Ealy) is the more human of the two police officers, a big robotic softie who has to remind his fleshier counterpart to open up. Dorian has to endure neo-racist quips and dismissals—“Synthetic off,” Kennex commands during an early interaction, inspiring the same reaction Dorian that any human might have—as well as the strangely casual threat of being the second robot partner in a row to be sent hurtling down the interstate. The intention is obvious. We’re meant to root for Kennex, but connect with the plight of Dorian. And nowhere within the first or second episodes of the Almost Human is there a hint of a robot uprising to come. Technology in 2048, we’re told, is unregulated and out of control. Sentient machines are part of the solution, not the problem.

For mainstream science fiction, this an interesting departure. It addresses, in its oafish, Hollywood way, the growing global discussion of robot ethics and robot rights, a largely preemptive attempt to lay the groundwork for the culpability of machines and their makers. That Almost Human intersects those issues might not be coincidental. The show’s executive producer, J.J. Abrams, became part of first batch of Director’s Fellows at MIT’s Media Lab earlier this year, where he chatted with researcher Kate Darling about the then-in-development series. Darling, who co-taught a class on robot rights with Larry Lessig at Harvard Law School, has become increasingly drawn into topics related to robot law and ethics. That informal meeting led to a one-hour conference call with show’s writers and series creator J.H. Wyman, where they dug into her research about how humans and robots currently interact, and might in the future.

“They asked me how society is going to perceive robots in the future,” says Darling. “I told them, That’s kind of up to you. These TV shows and movies tend to shape popular perception of robots more than anything else.” Fictional stories about robots, as enemies of our species, are then echoed by robotics articles in the popular press. “The way this show is made is going to shape the debate over this technology.”

There are familiar sci-fi tropes in Almost Human, such as the noble robotic exception, whose emotional intelligence evokes empathy in the viewer, even while we dismiss the setting’s other advanced automatons as soulless hardware, or vessels for malice. It’s the role filled by the T-800 in Terminator 2, with its learning mode and heroic sacrifice. Or Roy Batty in Blade Runner, showing mercy in the rain. Even the lamentable 1992 TV show Mann & Machine featured an android cop coming to grips with her feelings.

That fictional roboticists could so effortlessly create machines capable of real emotions—an accomplishment almost incomprehensible in its complexity, the artificial intelligence field’s equivalent of building a teleportation chamber—is standard-issue Hollywood hand-waving. But where Almost Human diverges from the norm is in showing a society that takes for granted the integration of robots. If there were debates about arming fully-autonomous police bots, or letting sexbots sell their wares, they appear to have been settled by 2048. Advanced weapons and unsettling biotech might be running amok, but robots are fully under control.

As Darling points out, it isn’t J.J. Abrams' or J.H. Wyman’s responsibility to detail the legal battles and societal hurdles that will stand in the way of humans putting assault rifles in the hands of robots, and shrugging off the occasional gunning down of a bystander. “Sci-fi nerds, who are really into this stuff, will probably be disappointed in this show, and think it needs to look at those gray areas,” says Darling (a self-described sci-fi nerd, and fan of the show). “It terms of change public perception, though, the first step is to simply raise this issue, that we might actually accept robots as life-like creatures in society.”

What’s most compelling about Almost Human, at least in terms of its potential impact on human-robot interaction, isn’t its exploration of what it feels like to be a feeling robot. The nuances and ramifications of a technological capability that’s indistinguishable from magic can make for great stories, and poor scientific speculation. What’s relevant is how we feel about robots.

In that regard, the show doesn’t mesh with Darling’s own research, much of which focuses on how humans sympathize with the unfeeling machines of our own era, robots that don’t even simulate emotions, much less experience them. In her work, which includes studying the online reactions posted on a video of the Pleo robotic dinosaur toy being beaten, strangled, and otherwise abused, and the sense of loss that military personnel feel when their bomb-disposal bots are irreparably damaged, the evidence is consistent. “We’re going to empathize with those things. Even when they are not designed to elicit emotional responses from humans, we bond with them,” says Darling.

Robotic partners, for example, will become something like a buddy, or at least a pet. Kennex may not have developed an attachment to the MX he pushed into traffic—it was their first day together—but the curt, master-and-slave tone that other officers seem to use with their partners seems unrealistic. Dorian may be a born charmer, but the faceless, voiceless explosive-ordinance-disposal robots that receive ad hoc military funerals in Afghanistan aren’t exactly the life of the party. Surly as they are, the MXs would grow on their human counterparts. “I don’t even know how you could design robots to minimize the empathy we eventually feel for them,” says Darling.

It might not matter, though, what the show’s humans think of their bots. Fiction is for our benefit, not its characters. If one of the goals of Almost Human is to change our perception of robots, the end of the second episode was a solid start. An illegally-manufactured sexbot is slated for deactivation. Dorian, being Dorian, requests to be there. She is not a very bright bot, and it’s unclear whether she has rudimentary emotions, or is merely programmed to create bonds through familiarity, to better service clients. So it’s unclear whether she understands why she’s in this white, antiseptic room, her back against an upright stretcher-like platform, with a technician milling about behind her. Maybe she’s afraid. Maybe not.

“Where am I going?” she asks, smiling a little.

“To a better place.”

“Will you be there?” she asks.

He pauses. “I will remember you.”

She dies.

Robophobia is pervasive, and deeply-ingrained, and often pretty fun. But if you watch that scene, and it does nothing, brace yourself: You might not be human, either. 

 

 


    






Motorola And 3D Systems Will 3-D-Print Modular Cell Phones

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Project Ara
Mark Serr

Last month, Motorola announced a plan for a modular smartphone. Project Ara, the company said, will be a simple way for users to individualize their phones, swapping out parts like the battery and camera until users have a phone that's just for them. How do they plan on doing that? With 3-D printing, apparently.

The company has inked a deal with 3D Systems, a global 3-D printing manufacturing company, to help produce parts of the phone. Assuming the project--still officially in development--takes off, 3D Systems would be a "multi-year" production partner, making smartphone "enclosures and modules" for the Google-owned phone company.

There's reason to be skeptical of modular phone technology, but Project Ara does get a pedigree boost from former DARPA director and now-Google exec Regina Dugan, and having the weight of a big tech company behind it doesn't hurt. Motorola says they'll be releasing more details on the project in the coming months.


    






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