MaxRedline

RoboRaven

Developed for the US Army, the new drone flies like an actual bird. Its intended use: spying, not weaponry.

WiSee

The spooks are going to love this: University of Washington research indicates that it's not only possible to track the movements of an individual by measuring Doppler shifts in the electromagnetic spectrum generated by the individual's movement through the environment, but it's also possible to identify gestures that the individual makes - with 94% accuracy. This capability can be harnessed to enable sensing and recognition of gestures in facilities (like your home) equipped with WiFi. 

WiSee is the first wireless system that can identify gestures in line-of-sight, non-line-of-sight, and through-the-wall scenarios. Unlike other gesture recognition systems like Kinect, Leap Motion or MYO, WiSee requires neither an infrastructure of cameras nor user instrumentation of devices.

In the context of wireless signals, if we consider the multi-path reflections from the human body as waves from a source, then a human performing a gesture results in a pattern of Doppler shifts at the wireless receiver. Thus, a user moving her hand away from the receiver results in a negative Doppler shift, while moving the hand towards the receiver results in a positive Doppler shift.

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WiSee uses WiFi signals to detect gestures from anywhere in your house (video)

Router Issues?

Our plants seem to do just fine in the main system room, but then, they were well established before being moved in. Seedlings may not do as well, at least according to this:

 

The students placed six trays filled with Lepidium sativum, a type of garden cress into a room without radiation, and six trays of the seeds into another room next to two routers that according to the girls calculations, emitted about the same type of radiation as an ordinary cellphone.

 

Over the next 12 days, the girls observed, measured, weighed and photographed their results. Although by the end of the experiment the results were blatantly obvious — the cress seeds placed near the router had not grown. Many of them were completely dead. While the cress seeds planted in the other room, away from the routers, thrived.

hmm. And our router's only three feet away. Time to fabricate and don the tin-foil hat! 

 

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Rise Of The Replicators

A three-dimensional time-for-space wiggle image of the sun taken by NASA spacecraft STEREO. 

We're all familiar with 3-D printed models, and the 3-D printed weapons have been getting a lot of play as well. But NASA's investing in the next big thing: they've awarded a grant to the small Systems and Materials Research Corporation, which will produce a prototype food printer.

NASA's interested in the concept because long-duration space voyages (say, to Mars) mandate such a device; they can't store - or grow - sufficient food to supply such missions. SMRC proposes to get around this issue using liquids and powders stored in cartridges, with shelf lives of as much as 30 years. The protein blocks could be derived from ground mealworms, other insects, or even algae; it doesn't matter because they're just components of the printing process, which will produce food by printing it, layer by layer.

The company has somewhat loftier plans than simply producing meals for the star-bound, however: taking a page from Paul Ehrlich, they envision a time in the near future when it simply won't be economical nor practical to grow food the old-fashioned way - on farms. Nope, there'll be a 3-D printer in every kitchen, and protein derived from ground-up insects and algae will rule. Mixed with flavorings and liquids, a healthy breakfast like the one above will be printed out for your enjoyment in a matter of minutes, and your trip to the corner grocery will involve merely exchanging spent cartridges and purchasing refills.

Mooch ought to love it; she's always ragging on you to "eat healthy", anyhow.

Your dog wants steak.

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NASA taps 3-D printer firm for 'Star Trek'-style food replicator

How Many Politicians Can We Fit In This Thing?

SEATTLE (AP) — Scientists are eager for access to information from a quarter-billion dollar lab at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean that they hope will teach them about climate change, earthquakes and even the origins of life on Earth and other planets.

The $239 million National Science Foundation project will install video cameras, seismic monitors and other gauges along a volcano in deep waters off the Pacific Northwest coast, giving researchers the ability to monitor activity 2 miles below the ocean surface.

Two miles down seems pretty reasonable; politicians can't do nearly as much harm from there. And at $240 million, it's dirt-cheap. Our politicians can sneeze and lose track of that amount of money.

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Yet More Inconvenient Tooths

Porkland City Council tried to unilaterally fluoridate our pure drinking water. It's For The Children™! In an amazingly short period of time, opponents collected about twice the number of signatures needed to put the matter to a vote, and presently, proponents are flooding the airwaves with more "it's for the children™!" stuff. One particular favorite is the one in which a woman says that growing up, she had good teeth because her water was fluoridated. "But Porkland", she whines, "doesn't".

Here's a piece of advice for that woman, and for others like her: move back to wherever you came from.

You know, these young, know-it-all transplants are a crashing pain. Not a one of them knows anything about the early to mid-20th century, because (a) they weren't yet born and (b) history isn't taught in public schools any more - but they all know how to put a condom on a pickle! Priorities, you know.

Anyway, some of remember when radium was painted onto watch and clock numerals. It was even incorporated into toothpastes, cosmetics, chocolates, and more. At that time, nobody knew how dangerous the stuff could be. Really - they just didn't know.

And to this day, nobody knows exactly what fluoride does, or how it works. Interestingly, tooth cavities have declined by nearly 20% across Oregon, and by 10% in Multnomah County - which, thanks to the tireless efforts of Porkland's "leaders" to attract them - has the highest proportion of drug addicts and homeless folks in the state.

One thing's certain: somebody stands to make a lot of money out of involuntary medication via the Porkland water supply; proponents are spending a ton of cash on television and radio ad purchases. They're not doing that for fun - or for your health.

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Now They're Just Being Silly

Times are bad in the "Man-Made Global Warming®" community of trough-feeders, these days as even the media's beginning to catch on to the fact that - hey, the planet hasn't been warming during the past 16 years or so. If the media's noticing, can the politicians be far behind? Fortunately, yes; yes, they can. Or si se puede, for those of you in southern California. So the "scientists" are struggling mightily to come up with a reason why the damn planet isn't doing what their models say they should do.

It might be the oceans. Then again, it might be down to the fact that these "scientists" approach things bass-ackwards: in actual science, one makes observations, then forms an hypothessis which might explain the observations. That's not how these guys roll; they produce models, and then are astounded to find that observations don't conform to their models. Some, like Michael Mann, simply manipulate data to make it seem like things conform to the model (see: hockey stick, climategate), but that's only a short-term solution; you can only fool people for so long with that kind of idiocy.

But the approach works, to the extent that it's proven successful at gaming the system and securing millions in government grants. It ain't, however, science.

Just how much are they twisting and turning? They're just being silly, at this point, as the following demonstrates:

A rapid rise in global temperatures in the 1980s and 1990s - when clean air laws in developed nations cut pollution and made sunshine stronger at the earth's surface - made for a compelling argument that human emissions were to blame.

Got it? Developed nations cut air pollution, temperatures increased by a bit, and so stronger laws must be developed to cut even more pollution in order to Save The Planet™ from Man-Made Global Warming®. The venerable United Nations IPCC - which thus far hasn't got anything right - says so:

The IPCC will seek to explain the current pause in a report to be released in three parts from late 2013 as the main scientific roadmap for governments in shifting from fossil fuels towards renewable energies such as solar or wind power, the panel's chairman Rajendra Pachauri said.

So, since global warming stopped some 16 years ago, it's imperative that "scientists" put their heads together and come up with an explanation that will allow politicians appropriate cover in order for them to continue to (1) keep the grant gravy train rolling and (2) impose ever greater controls over the activities of the little people. After all, freedom is one of those things that must be sacrificed for the good of the collective.

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Wave Of The Future

120804-N-ZZ999-004 (Photo credit: ONRphoto)

The U.S. Navy announced yesterday that it will commence deployment of a next-generation weapon system during the coming year or so. A solid-state laser will be mounted on the USS Ponce and moved to the Middle East for real-world experience, having passed stateside testing.

"It operates much like a blowtorch ... with an unlimited magazine," one official said.

And an inexpensive one, at that, as each pulse costs about a dollar. Stateside testing was conducted from a warship - not a land-based platform - and the weapon generated a 100% kill rate.

It's hardly problem-free, however: the solid-state laser component fires at a fixed wavelength, which means that it may prove ineffective in certain environmental conditions. Tunable sytems using free electron generation have been tested on land, with incredible results; burning though solid steel in seconds may make them effective against high-speed targets such as missiles and fighter jets, whereas the solid-state laser is geared for slower moving targets such as drones and boats. However, the Free-Electron Laser system likely won't be ready for prime-time engagement until 2020 or later.

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NASA To Congress: Bend Over

"What would we do if you detected even a small one like the one that detonated in Russia headed for New York in three weeks? What would you do?" Rep. Bill Posey (R-Fla.) asked.

NASA boss Charles Bolden's answer was succinct: "Pray". After all, it wouldn't be prudent to tell a Congressman to kiss his butt goodbye.

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Important Scientific Study

Traffic Light (Photo credit: katerha)

University of Illinois agricultural economist Brenna Ellison, a professor of agricultural and consumer economics, has co-authored a study, paid with your tax dollars, with deep and profound implications for daily life: restaurant menus should come with traffic-light labels.

"The traffic light may function as a normative suggestion as to what is 'better' or 'worse' for diners to eat," Ellison said. "Thus, by reducing the number of calories ordered for diners across all levels of health-consciousness, the combination calorie/traffic-light label seems to be more effective than the numeric calorie label alone."

This critically important information will doubtless prove a useful addition to the nanny-state toolbox. The traffic light may, after all, be normative. You know how important that is.

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Symbols, such as traffic lights, on menus effective in educating diners