Science & Technology news & discussion

Microsoft Edge just got a killer upgrade Chrome can’t match



Microsoft’s Edge browser just got a whole lot more appealing. After entering preview four months ago, Microsoft will roll out vertical tabs to all users this month.

Web browser designers have coalesced around the idea that tabs belong in a horizontal bar along the top, reducing the amount of space for a site to appear in, and increasing the need for scrolling. With ultra-wide monitors becoming increasingly popular, Microsoft believes there’s a better way.

Browser history is also getting reworked. Rather than taking up a whole page, it’ll now appear as a drop-down menu on the toolbar, and it can be pinned to the side for convenience’s sake.

https://www.tomsguide.com/news/microsoft-edge-just-got-a-killer-upgrade-chrome-cant-match


Microsoft Edge has a slick new tool to solve complex math problems

Microsoft is testing a powerful new Math Solver tool for Edge that will solve any formula on a webpage for you.

The adoption of the Chromium engine by Microsoft Edge has seen the once-maligned browser coming on in leaps and bounds. After initially playing catch-up with the likes of Chrome and Firefox, Microsoft is now starting to introduce completely unique features that really make the browser stand out from the crowd.

The testing ground for many of the new features and options that ultimately make their way to the main release version of Edge are the Canary builds. The latest addition to the browser sees the arrival of Math Solver – but only for some users.

The first option is to manually type out a problem using your keyboard – and an extended on-screen keyboard – but there is also a selection tool available to you. Using a lasso tool, you can draw around a formula or equation you have encountered online, much like selecting a portion of an image in an image editor. Math Solver then uses OCR (optical character recognition) to read the problem, convert it into a form readable by Edge, and then solve it for you.

https://www.techradar.com/au/news/microsoft-edge-has-a-slick-new-tool-to-solve-complex-math-problems

 

Ernst Udet's amazing landing

German WW1 Ace Ernst Udet performs a dead stick loop and side slip landing hitting a narrow road dead center.

 

Humans Evolved to Be More Water-Efficient Than Other Primates, But We Don't Know Why

Humans have evolved big, energy-hungry brains that require us to consume many more calories than our closest animal relatives. The same, however, does not appear to hold for our water intake.

Compared to apes, a surprising new study has found our bodies churn through far fewer fluids on a daily basis.

Researchers found that, on average, humans processed 3 litres, or about 12 cups, of water a day. Chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas living in a zoo, on the other hand, go through nearly twice that much.

The results were somewhat unexpected. Since humans have 10 times as many sweat glands as chimps, and are, on the whole, much more active than apes, you'd expect us to lose more water every day, not less.

Yet even when accounting for outside temperatures, body size, and activity levels, humans still required less water to maintain a healthy equilibrium.

"Compared to other apes, humans in this study had substantially lower water turnover and consumed less water per unit of metabolised food energy," the authors write.

This suggests early hominins somehow evolved a way or ways to conserve their bodily fluids, allowing them to travel from the rainforest to more arid regions. Exactly how that was achieved remains unclear.

"Even just being able to go a little bit longer without water would have been a big advantage as early humans started making a living in dry, savannah landscapes," explains the study's lead author and evolutionary anthropologist Herman Pontzer from Duke University.

https://www.sciencealert.com/humans...ink-far-less-water-than-our-primate-relatives

 

Billion dollar Space tourism Industry - Luxury, artificial gravity, and size. There is no equal.

Voyager Station space hotel is planning to open a luxury space hotel by 2027. Not certain on its room rate, but compared to other proposed public space missions, it will likely come at a steep cost. For example, Virgin Galactic plans to launch ordinary passengers into space at $250,000 per person, per trip...the ultimate getaway for those who just have too much money



https://voyagerstation.com/

 

Earth’s magnetic field broke down 42,000 years ago and caused massive sudden climate change

The world experienced a few centuries of apocalyptic conditions 42,000 years ago, triggered by a reversal of the Earth’s magnetic poles combined with changes in the Sun’s behaviour. That’s the key finding of our new multidisciplinary study, published in Science.

This last major geomagnetic reversal triggered a series of dramatic events that have far-reaching consequences for our planet. They read like the plot of a horror movie: the ozone layer was destroyed, electrical storms raged across the tropics, solar winds generated spectacular light shows (auroras), Arctic air poured across North America, ice sheets and glaciers surged and weather patterns shifted violently.

During these events, life on earth was exposed to intense ultraviolet light, Neanderthals and giant animals known as megafauna went extinct, while modern humans sought protection in caves.

For reasons still not entirely clear, magnetic pole movements can sometimes be more extreme than a wobble. One of the most dramatic of these pole migrations took place some 42,000 years ago and is known as the Laschamps Excursion – named after the village where it was discovered in the French Massif Central.

The Laschamps Excursion has been recognised around the world, including most recently in Tasmania, Australia. But up until now, it has not been clear whether such magnetic changes had any impacts on climate and life on the planet. Our new work draws together multiple lines of evidence that strongly suggest the effects were indeed global and far-reaching.

Read on...

https://theconversation.com/earths-...d-caused-massive-sudden-climate-change-155580

 

They are going to have to price it to fill those rooms, so the cost will come down

Make a reservation and Investment links are included on the site!

 

No doubt they'll get some heavy investment. It's a facinating precision build...the "billionaires club", too rich for my blood, lol.

 

So this is the Von Braun Station rebranded as Voyager?

 

Yup, they've got it down to a science: https://orbitalassembly.com/

I'm more of a down-to-earth kinda guy, lol. I'm considering a build for next winter, this architecture is more like my style...

 

That looks very nice, just like Interestellar movie. But I guess that torque or rotational force won't be exactly like Earth's gravity. I would recomend anyone there to have enough Dimenhydrinate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimenhydrinate for all their holiday up there.
I definitely would not be between the people testing that wheel of fortune A malfunction on that wheel and you can have a hard dance up there

Artificial gravity

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_gravity#Centripetal_force

• 
  
  • The Coriolis effect gives an apparent force that acts on objects that move relative to a rotating reference frame. This apparent force acts at right angles to the motion and the rotation axis and tends to curve the motion in the opposite sense to the habitat's spin. If an astronaut inside a rotating artificial gravity environment moves towards or away from the axis of rotation, they will feel a force pushing them towards or away from the direction of spin. These forces act on the semicircular canals of the inner ear and can cause dizziness, nausea and disorientation. Lengthening the period of rotation (slower spin rate) reduces the Coriolis force and its effects. It is generally believed that at 2 rpm or less, no adverse effects from the Coriolis forces will occur, although humans have been shown to adapt to rates as high as 23 rpm.[4] It is not yet known whether very long exposures to high levels of Coriolis forces can increase the likelihood of becoming accustomed. The nausea-inducing effects of Coriolis forces can also be mitigated by restraining movement of the head.

This form of artificial gravity has additional engineering issues:

• 
  
  
  • Kinetic energy and angular momentum: Spinning up (or down) parts or all of the habitat requires energy, while angular momentum must be conserved. This would require a propulsion system and expendable propellant, or could be achieved without expending mass, by an electric motor and a counterweight, such as a reaction wheel or possibly another living area spinning in the opposite direction.
  • Extra strength is needed in the structure to keep it from flying apart because of the rotation. However, the amount of structure needed over and above that to hold a breathable atmosphere (10 tons force per square meter at 1 atmosphere) is relatively modest for most structures.
  • If parts of the structure are intentionally not spinning, friction and similar torques will cause the rates of spin to converge (as well as causing the otherwise stationary parts to spin), requiring motors and power to be used to compensate for the losses due to friction.
  • Depending upon the spececraft's configuration a pressure seal between stationary and rotating sections might be required.

 

They're going to use this space station a human experiment, bold claim "space is now open for everyone". Promoting harvesting carbon zero energy in space...

 

For a holiday it may be funny. But for live permanently on that space spinning station, I prefer our Earth's gravity...
We better start taking care of our planet, otherwise living conditions here can become very difficult and we won't find up there on the space anything not even remotely similar to our nice and amazing planet.

 

Promoting harvesting carbon zero energy in space...

To reduce the carbon footprint in space?

 

That's a good one.

 

I'm glad you raised this point.

It's essentially a giant centrifuge that may address some short term issues of weightlessness, but a centrifuge is not a long-term replacement for gravity. We evolved to live on a planet with 1G.

We still don't understand what gravity really is.

I hope they pull this off so we can better understand the long term effects of artificial gravity on the human body.

Thanks for the heads-up @Cannuck I'm going to keep an eye on this

 

Why Gravity is NOT a Force

The General Theory of Relativity tells us gravity is not a force, gravitational fields don't exist. Objects tend to move on straight paths through curved spacetime.






Our Ignorance About Gravity

This video is about how little we know about the behavior of gravity at short length and distance scales, what the constraints are on the inverse square law/Newton's law of universal gravitation, at the human and microscopic and atomic scales. Only on solar system scales or larger do we have good constraints on Newton's law of gravitation.






Artificial Gravity

Artificial gravity is a concept that is ubiquitous in our science fiction yet elusive in our space program. Why is this? And how could we develop artificial gravity soon? In a Cool Worlds special, this video essay goes in depth on the topic discussing why centrifuges are the most plausible solution and early ideas on the topic. Join us a journey from Einstein's equivalence principle, to O'Neill Cylinders and Stanford Tori; from Coriolis forces to near-term experiments. Grab a cup of a tea and enjoy.

 

Tens of thousands of US organizations hit in ongoing Microsoft Exchange hack

Multiple hacking groups are exploiting vulnerabilities to backdoor unpatched servers.

Tens of thousands of US-based organizations are running Microsoft Exchange servers that have been backdoored by threat actors who are stealing administrator passwords and exploiting critical vulnerabilities in the email and calendaring application, it was widely reported. Microsoft issued emergency patches on Tuesday, but they do nothing to disinfect systems that are already compromised.

KrebsOnSecurity was the first to report the mass hack. Citing multiple unnamed people, reporter Brian Krebs put the number of compromised US organizations at at least 30,000. Worldwide, Krebs said there were at least 100,000 hacked organizations. Other news outlets, also citing unnamed sources, quickly followed with posts reporting the hack had hit tens of thousands of organizations in the US.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/202...tions-hit-in-ongoing-microsoft-exchange-hack/

 

How early humans' quest for food stoked the flames of evolution

A love of complex smells and flavours gave our ancestors an edge and stopped hangovers

Human evolution and exploration of the world were shaped by a hunger for tasty food – “a quest for deliciousness” – according to two leading academics.

Ancient humans who had the ability to smell and desire more complex aromas, and enjoy food and drink with a sour taste, gained evolutionary advantages over their less-discerning rivals, argue the authors of a new book about the part played by flavour in our development.

Some of the most significant inventions early humans made, such as stone tools and the controlled use of fire, were also partly driven by their pursuit of flavour and a preference for food they considered delicious, according to the new hypothesis.

“This key moment when we decide whether or not to use fire has, at its core, just the tastiness of food and the pleasure it provides. That is the moment in which our ancestors confront a choice between cooking things and not cooking things,” said Rob Dunn, a professor of applied ecology at North Carolina State University. “And they chose flavour.”

Cooked food tasted more delicious than uncooked food – and that’s why we opted to continue cooking it, he says: not just because, as academics have argued, cooked roots and meat were easier and safer to digest, and rewarded us with more calories.

Some scientists think the controlled use of fire, which was probably adopted a million years ago, was central to human evolution and helped us to evolve bigger brains.

https://www.theguardian.com/science...quest-for-food-stoked-the-flames-of-evolution

 

What animal has the largest ears?

Relative to body size?



Which animal has the largest ears? You might think it's the elephant, and you'd be right — sort of. As the largest living land animal, the African elephant does have the biggest ears of any living animal, according to Mary Ellen Holden, a zoologist and mammalogist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. But the creature with the largest ears relative to the size of its body is the long-eared jerboa (Euchoreutes naso), a nocturnal, insect-eating rodent that lives in the deserts of China and Mongolia.

The long-eared jerboa (rhymes with Samoa) measures about 4 inches (10 centimeters) from head to rump (not counting its long tail). Its ears, measuring 1.5 to 2 inches (3.8 to 5 cm) long, are 40% to 50% the length of its body.

"It has the longest ears relative to its body size in the entire animal kingdom," Holden told Live Science. For comparison, the ears of the African elephant average nearly 4 feet (1.2 m) in length, according to Holden, but that's only about 17% of their body length, which averages about 20 to 25 feet (6 to 7.5 m).

https://www.livescience.com/largest-animal-ears-relative-to-body-size.html

 

Israeli 5-minute battery charge aims to fire up electric cars

From flat battery to full charge in just five minutes -- an Israeli start-up has developed technology it says could eliminate the "range anxiety" associated with electric cars.

Ultra-fast recharge specialists StoreDot have developed a first-generation lithium-ion battery that can rival the filling time of a standard car at the pump.

"We are changing the entire experience of the driver, the problem of 'range anxiety'... that you might get stuck on the highway without energy," StoreDot founder Doron Myersdorf said.The innovation could eliminate the hours required to recharge an electric car, he said.



Hundreds of prototypes are being tested by manufacturers.

His company, based in Herzliya, near Tel Aviv, is backed by four key investors: German automobile manufacturer Daimler, the UK's British Petroleum and the electronic giants Samsung and TDK.
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/tech...rge-aims-to-fire-up-electric-cars/ar-BB1ek0Wj

 

Scientists Discover How Electrons Close to Earth Can Reach Almost the Speed of Light
New study found that electrons can reach ultra-relativistic energies for very special conditions in the magnetosphere when space is devoid of plasma.

Recent measurements from NASA’s Van Allen Probes spacecraft showed that electrons can reach ultra-relativistic energies flying at almost the speed of light. Hayley Allison, Yuri Shprits, and collaborators from the German Research Centre for Geosciences have revealed under which conditions such strong accelerations occur. They had already demonstrated in 2020 that during solar storm plasma waves play a crucial role for that. However, it was previously unclear why such high electron energies are not achieved in all solar storms. In the journal Science Advances, Allison, Shprits and colleagues now show that extreme depletions of the background plasma density are crucial.

At ultra-relativistic energies, electrons move at almost the speed of light. Then the laws of relativity become most important. The mass of the particles increases by a factor ten, time is slowing down, and distance decreases. With such high energies, charged particles become most dangerous to even the best-protected satellites. As almost no shielding can stop them, their charge can destroy sensitive electronics. Predicting their occurrence — for example, as part of the observations of space weather practiced at the GFZ — is therefore very important for modern infrastructure.


https://scitechdaily.com/scientists...to-earth-can-reach-almost-the-speed-of-light/

 

Fine particulate matter from wildfire smoke more harmful than pollution from other sources

Researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego examining 14 years of hospital admissions data conclude that the fine particles in wildfire smoke can be several times more harmful to human respiratory health than particulate matter from other sources such as car exhaust. While this distinction has been previously identified in laboratory experiments, the new study confirms it at the population level.

This new research work, focused on Southern California, reveals the risks of tiny airborne particles with diameters of up to 2.5 microns, about one-twentieth that of a human hair. These particles—termed PM2.5—are the main component of wildfire smoke and can penetrate the human respiratory tract, enter the bloodstream and impair vital organs.

https://phys.org/news/2021-03-fine-particulate-wildfire-pollution-sources.html


I can personally attest to how debilitating wildfire smoke can be to you health. It took me many months to recover following the Australian 2019-2020 bushfire season, where we were breathing in smoke for a number of weeks. Having never suffered from asthma or any other breathing difficulties, it was quite alarming, and my general health certainly suffered as a result.

 

First wearable device can monitor jaundice-causing bilirubin and vitals in newborns

Researchers in Japan have developed the first wearable devices to precisely monitor jaundice, a yellowing of the skin caused by elevated bilirubin levels in the blood that can cause severe medical conditions in newborns. Jaundice can be treated easily by irradiating the infant with blue light that breaks bilirubin down to be excreted through urine. The treatment itself, however, can disrupt bonding time, cause dehydration and increase the risks of allergic diseases. Neonatal jaundice is one of the leading causes of death and brain damage in infants in low- and middle-income countries.

To address the tricky balance of administering the precise amount of blue light needed to counteract the exact levels of bilirubin, researchers have developed the first wearable sensor for newborns that is capable of continuously measuring bilirubin. In addition to bilirubin detection, the device can simultaneously detect pulse rate and blood oxygen saturation in real time.

Led by Hiroki Ota, associate professor of mechanical engineering in Yokohama National University’s Graduate School of System Integration, and Shuichi Ito, professor of department of Pediatrics in Yokohama City University’s Graduate School of Medicine, the team published their results on March 3 in Science Advances.

 

Higher income predicts feelings such as pride and confidence, but not necessarily more compassionate or loving

People with higher incomes tend to feel prouder, more confident and less afraid than people with lower incomes, but not necessarily more compassionate or loving, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.

In a study of data from 162 countries, researchers found consistent evidence that higher income predicts whether people feel more positive "self-regard emotions," including confidence, pride and determination. Lower income had the opposite effect, and predicted negative self-regard emotions, such as sadness, fear and shame. The research was published online in the journal Emotion.

The findings were similar in both high-income countries and developing countries, said lead researcher Eddie M.W. Tong, PhD, an associate professor of psychology at the National University of Singapore.

"The effects of income on our emotional well-being should not be underestimated," he said. "Having more money can inspire confidence and determination while earning less is associated with gloom and anxiety."

In what they called the most comprehensive analyses to date, the researchers conducted an independent analysis and a meta-analysis of five previous studies that included a survey of more than 1.6 million people in 162 countries. The analyses also included a category of emotions people feel about others, such as love, anger or compassion. Unlike self-regard emotions, the studies didn't find a consistent link between income level and how people feel about others.

 

AI Can Now Learn What Faces You Find Attractive Directly From Your Brain Waves

They say beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, but in actuality, it goes far deeper than that.

The concept of physical beauty resides in the mind, defined by whatever features we find attractive in other people's faces. These subtle preferences represent some of our most private inner thoughts – but that doesn't mean they can't be monitored, and perhaps even predicted.

In a new study, researchers used electroencephalography (EEG) measurements to identify what kind of facial features people found to be attractive, and then fed the results to an artificial intelligence (AI) program.

The machine learning system – termed a generative adversarial neural network (GAN) – was first able to familiarise itself with what sorts of faces individual people found desirable, and then fabricate entirely new ones specifically designed to please: tailored visions of synthesised beauty, as unattainable as they were perfect.



https://www.sciencealert.com/ai-can...vision-of-your-dreams-out-of-your-brain-waves