Official "Science News" Thread

[only_human]

Originally Posted by Uncwilly

It is not a NASA lander. It is Armadillo Aerospace's lander. It was being tested at KSC. Most of the press coverage calls it a "NASA lander".

Yes, it's not a rover either. My little ticker still went pitter patter for a moment anyway. Which, I surmise, is what the press coverage wants.

[Dubslow]

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/48689501#.UC1gXt1lTYg


New cancer drug affects sperm, study shows. Finally, a male birth control pill?

[ewmayer]

The headline says "Air Force", but it's clearly a Boeing - Anyhoo, another hi-tech test gizmo has crashed:

Air Force hypersonic X-51A WaveRider crashes during latest test flight

The defense department claims that the X-51A program is "a technology demonstrator and was not designed to be a prototype for a weapon system."

That might be reassuring, if the next sentence didn't read

It was designed to pave the way to future hypersonic weapons, hypersonic intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and future access to space.

[Dubslow]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Air Force hypersonic X-51A WaveRider crashes during latest test flight
That might be reassuring, if the next sentence didn't read

A prototype is something that theoretically is the final product, but for which testing is supposed to reveal problems which need fixing. (If no problems are found, they'd just copy the prototype and call it "production quality".) That thing which broke up was a long way from being a missile. Adding explosives to it would not make it anywhere near even theoretically useful.

[Dubslow]

http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/fu...ic-arms-928612

http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/fu...-cancer-908308

[Dubslow]

Space elevator ideas rising again

Clarke once joked that the space elevator would be built "about 50 years after everybody quits laughing." Several years ago, LiftPort Group founder Michael Laine set up a countdown clock that predicted the "first lift" would come even sooner, in 2018. Today, six years seems way too soon, but at least people have stopped laughing.

[Batalov]

Originally Posted by Dubslow

http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/fu...-cancer-908308

Smart girl, and she deserves a prize in her age category!

That aside, don't be misled for a moment though that the problem is anywhere near "solved". Given enough degrees of freedom, you can train a NN to explain anything. Adding cloud was of course totally necessary (sarcasm warning), take the buzzword value alone...! no, seriously, it was totally necessary to win the prize (not to solve the problem) because this was a Google competion. You simply needed to use cloud. Jack-knifing is necessary to avoid overtraining. I am intrigued to read the details... Looked up the details - there was no bootstrapping. Good effort for a highschooler.

In addition, when all data is used for training, the custom network achieves 100% success

loved that bit. :-)

[Dubslow]

New DNA project shows us living beyond our genes

The bounty of new discoveries, released in a batch of 40 research papers on Wednesday, shows the stretches of DNA that we call genes are only a very small piece of what makes the body work. Much more important is the stuff in between the genes – stuff once dismissed as “junk DNA”. It turns out that junk DNA is what is in control, they report in the series of papers in the journals Nature, Science and elsewhere.

“This has opened up whole new galaxies. It’s like having a bigger telescope,” says Dr. Bruce Stillman, president of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, which played a major role in the work.

It appears Batalov has a lot of papers to read over the next few weeks. When you've done that, could you tell us how much is the hype is deserved?

[Batalov]

I am so good that I can give a blurb without reading them!

ENCODE is a very, very old project. Most of its data was available for years, in batches, and every few years it's time to write up a special edition. (Time to renew grants, too?) That's all there is. Plus, there's usually dozens of vignettes, many of them truly beautiful. Forty research papers don't just come out; it is a special issue; pre-arranged.

It was all the same, one dull Thursday evening when a certain paper came out that happened to link me to a certain Erdos #2 holder. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

Paul (that one or the other one?) undoubtedly probably met most of these people in the washroom (and the other half he couldn't meet , because of strange social taboos). Certainly met them all in the cafeteria one day or another... I met maybe only half and maybe only in the WTCC corridors. Even from this little pic, I can tell you who they are.

[LaurV]

Originally Posted by Batalov

Even from this little pic, I can tell you who they are.

Whose the blonde and the brunette on the left? (her left )

[xilman]

Originally Posted by Batalov

Paul (that one or the other one?) undoubtedly probably met most of these people in the washroom (and the other half he couldn't meet , because of strange social taboos).

It must be the other one. I never mingled with such exalted company as mammalian genomic specialists. I was firmly stuck with the fly crowd, though did meet some of the worm people every now and again because they were on our external oversight committee. I still have, and use, a bright blue plastic fly swat with the WormBase logo printed on it that the wormers presented to each of the FlyBase team at one of the annual review meetings in Harvard.