Decolonizing STEM

NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter concluded its 72nd flight with a rough emergency landing‚ losing contact with the rover Perseverance when it was still about 3 meters (10 feet) from the ground. One communication was established‚ the American space agency announced that they had seen images that confirmed that after almost 1‚000 days of service‚ Ingenuity had taken its final flight and the mission was over. The image has now been shared and yeah‚ it's not good.The little helicopter cannot take selfies like a rover and Perseverance is currently too far away to snap a photo. However‚ the team used sunlight to inspect its rotors and spotted the issue that had occurred in its shadow. The rotor blade was damaged. The 72nd flight on January 18 where it hovered to establish position was Ingenuity’s fatal one.NASA also released an incredible new photo of rippling sand dunes taken by the helicopter from about 12 meters (39 feet) in the air back in December‚ on its 70th flight. The image shows the widest swath of sandy terrain the helicopter had flown over yet. Ingenuity captured this view of sand ripples during its 70th flight‚ on December 22‚ 2023‚ at 12 meters (39 feet) above the surface.Image credit: NASA/JPL-CaltechWhile it is sad when a mission ends‚ let’s stress just how extraordinary Ingenuity was. It was the first flying vehicle on another world. It was also just a prototype‚ designed to test five planned flights over 30 days. Instead‚ it worked so well that it became a science partner for Perseverance‚ providing a bird's eye view of the terrain ahead for the rover.In total‚ the 'little helicopter that could' flew for over two hours‚ traveling for more than 17 kilometers (11 miles). The highest height it reached was 24 meters (79 feet)‚ five times more than expected in planning. It was truly a pathfinder and now more flying vehicles are being designed for Mars and beyond.  

A planet with a radius 55 percent larger than Earth’s has been found in the habitable zone of a relatively nearby star. A second planet‚ closer in size to the Earth‚ is suspected to also lie within the habitable zone of the same system – which would make it the smallest habitable zone planet yet found by the TESS spacecraft. Finding planets beyond our solar system was once so rare as to make each new announcement exciting‚ but by now the drip has become a stream. A planet needs something special to stand out. TOI-715b‚ and its possible sibling TOI-715c‚ have that through a combination of size and location.Most of the planets we have found orbit too close to their stars to offer much prospect for life‚ being far too hot. Of those at more moderate temperatures‚ most are gas giants. These things probably don’t reflect the galactic population‚ but that large planets close to their star are much easier to find.Even most planets reported as being in a star’s “habitable zone” come with an asterisk. In theory‚ the habitable zone is the region where temperatures are right for liquid water at the surface‚ a vital feature of Earth’s abundance. However‚ there is enough uncertainty about planetary temperatures‚ depending on guesses such as how much light a planet reflects away‚ that there are really two habitable zones: referred to as “conservative” and “optimistic”. Guess which one most reported planets fall into. TOI-715b is in the conservative habitable zone. Even taking the more pessimistic side of some assumptions‚ its temperature should be right for liquid water‚ inspiring astronomers to investigate it with a range of Earth-based telescopes that complement TESS's findings.Being 137 light years away‚ TOI-715 is less conveniently placed for observations than the TRAPPIST-1 system‚ but it’s still closer than most of the stars we study. If either planet is suitable for life‚ there has been plenty of time for life to evolve – there’s a lot of uncertainty about TOI-715’s age‚ but the best estimate is 6.6 billion years.The great uncertainty concerns its atmosphere. In keeping with most of the stars TESS studies‚ TOI-715 is a red dwarf‚ allowing TOI-715b to maintain a comfortable temperature while orbiting every 19.2 days. However red dwarves tend to flare a lot‚ which can strip atmospheres off planets too close in‚ as TRAPPIST-1 has apparently done to its nearest planets.In that context‚ TOI-715b’s larger size – and likely stronger gravitational pull – could be an asset‚ increasing the chance it has held onto its atmosphere‚ although the strength of its magnetic field would also matter. Over two years‚ TOI-175 didn’t flare very strongly‚ but this could be a result of its age; the possibility that when younger‚ more star activity long ago ruined the chance of life can’t be ruled out.The planets we have found seldom have radii between 1.5 and 2 times that of Earth‚ known as the radius valley. There is considerable debate about the reasons the valley exists‚ but TOI-715b makes it a little shallower‚ and the discoverers of the planet question if we’ve been imagining it.The prospective planet TOI-715c is thought to be just 7 percent wider than the Earth‚ although in keeping with the uncertainty of whether it exists at all the error bars on that are greater. Its suspected orbit is 25.6 days‚ putting it near the outer edge of the optimistic habitable zone‚ somewhat equivalent to Mars.The report is published open access in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Researchers in Australia have used spent coffee grounds to make concrete 30 percent stronger. Simply by replacing a percentage of sand with waste coffee‚ something common to many households‚ it is possible to make construction more efficient and greener. As a household item‚ coffee grounds are everywhere. It is currently estimated that around 60 million tons are produced across the world each year‚ most of which is simply thrown away. That’s a lot of waste‚ and it contributes to the production of methane gas when it ends up in landfills‚ which contributes to the ongoing climate crisis. There is therefore a need to develop new recycling solutions that can help address the accumulation of this waste. That’s where the work of the team from RMIT University comes into play. “The inspiration for our work was to find an innovative way of using the large amounts of coffee waste in construction projects rather than going to landfills – to give coffee a ‘double shot’ at life‚” lead author Dr Rajeev Roychand‚ a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at RMIT‚ said in a statement.Because spent coffee consists of fine particles‚ they were proposed as useful resources for civil and commercial applications. To test the idea‚ the team collected spent coffee grounds from cafes in Melbourne‚ Australia‚ and then dried them. The coffee was then heated through a process called “pyrolysis”‚ which involves heating organic material‚ such as a biomass‚ in the absence of oxygen. This turned the coffee grounds into biochar.The team then designed 12 mixes to compare the effects the grounds had when made into concrete. This consisted of spent grounds that were untreated (raw)‚ and grounds that were heated to 350°C (662°F) or 500°C (932°F)‚ respectively. These different products were then added to Portland cement at different percentages volumes (0‚ 5‚ 10‚ 15‚ and 20 percent volume) as a replacement for sand. The concrete is then molded and cured at room temperature for 24 hours before being demolded and cured in water tanks to be tested for its compressive strength (to see how far it can be stressed before it fractures) and performance potential. This mix was then analyzed with X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopes (SEM). The results show that a mix consisting of 15 percent pyrolyzed grounds at 350°C significantly improved the structural properties of concrete – around 29.3 percent improvement in compressive strength. More work needs to be done to continue developing and testing this method‚ but it is already showing promise and gaining interest. “Several councils that are battling with the disposal of organic waste have shown interest in our work”‚ Roychand added.  “They have already engaged us for their upcoming infrastructure projects incorporating pyrolysed forms of different organic wastes.”A wakeup call for the construction industryAccording to the joint lead author‚ Dr Shannon Kilmartin-Lynch‚ a Vice-Chancellor’s Indigenous Postdoctoral Research Fellow at RMIT‚ the results of this study have significant implications for the construction industry across the world. “Inspiration for my research‚ from an Indigenous perspective‚ involves Caring for Country‚ ensuring there’s a sustainable life cycle for all materials and avoiding things going into landfill to minimise the impact on the environment‚” Kilmartin-Lynch explained.“The concrete industry has the potential to contribute significantly to increasing the recycling of organic waste such as used coffee.“Our research is in the early stages‚ but these exciting findings offer an innovative way to greatly reduce the amount of organic waste that goes to landfill.”Importantly‚ the use of biochar in construction projects will relax pressure on the need for fine sand‚ which is a scares resource across the world. Sand is among the most extracted solid materials on the planet and the second most used resource after water. Moreover‚ the continued extraction of sand is extremely harmful to the environment.“The ongoing extraction of natural sand around the world – typically taken from river beds and banks – to meet the rapidly growing demands of the construction industry has a big impact on the environment‚” team leader Professor Jie Li explained.“With a circular-economy approach‚ we could keep organic waste out of landfill and also better preserve our natural resources like sand.”The study was published in the Journal of Cleaner Production.An earlier version of this article was published in August 2023.

There are plenty of conspiracy theories available on the internet. If you want to believe the world is flat and that if you walk off the edge you simply teleport your way to the other side like Pac-Man‚ you'd better believe that there's someone on the internet who will support you in your weirdly specific ignorance. But what if [leans in close and checks for nearby CIA operatives] the internet is all part of the conspiracy too? That is the basic launching point of the "Dead Internet Theory"‚ the conspiracy theory that claims that in 2016 or 2017‚ the internet became much worse‚ and you are now logging on to a graveyard absent of human activity.What is the dead internet theory?“The Internet feels empty and devoid of people. It is also devoid of content. Compared to the internet of say 2007 (and beyond) the Internet of today is entirely sterile. There is nowhere to go and nothing to do‚ see‚ read or experience anymore‚" one influential post on the topic reads. "Yes‚ the Internet may seem gigantic‚ but it’s like a hot air balloon with nothing inside.”A pretty dull idea‚ but of course the conspiracy theory gets wacky. It claims that the internet as we know it today is largely just artificial intelligence (AI) generated content‚ put there for nefarious purposes.   "There is a large-scale‚ deliberate effort to manipulate culture and discourse online and in wider culture by utilising a system of bots and paid employees whose job it is to produce content and respond to content online in order to further the agenda of those they are employed by‚” the aforementioned post claims.According to conspiracy theorists‚ these bots attempt to influence public perception on just about any political topic‚ or else keep you constantly distracted and buying products‚ to keep you from questioning the elites.Of course‚ there is a lot of bot activity on the internet. In fact‚ nearly half of all internet traffic (not internet content) came from bots in 2022. This includes activity like distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks‚ where websites are maliciously overloaded with a barrage of automated requests. “Bots have evolved rapidly since 2013‚ but with the advent of generative artificial intelligence‚ the technology will evolve at an even greater‚ more concerning pace over the next 10 years‚” Karl Triebes‚ senior vice president at Imperva‚ the firm who carried out the research‚ said in a statement at the time.“Cyber criminals will increase their focus on attacking API endpoints and application business logic with sophisticated automation. As a result‚ the business disruption and financial impact associated with bad bots will become even more significant in the coming years.”These bots are probably already familiar to you from social media.                          IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites.Bot-generated content is a problem for search engines‚ which is also only going to get worse. People have complained about Google's decline in the last few years‚ with studies backing up the idea that it is sending people to less useful content than before. Marissa Mayer‚ the 20th employee to join Google who went on to serve as CEO of Yahoo‚ believes that the problem is down to the internet itself becoming worse.“I do think the quality of the Internet has taken a hit‚" Mayer told Freakonomics. "When I started at Google‚ there were about 30 million web pages‚ so crawling them all and indexing them all was relatively straightforward. It sounds like a lot‚ but it’s small. Today‚ I think there was one point where Google had seen more than a trillion URLs.”Mayer added that it was natural for people to blame Google when they aren't getting the quality search results they used to‚ but she sees Google's results as more of a window into the web itself."The real question is‚ why is the web getting worse?"Though it can feel like the internet is getting worse‚ and that bot activity is on the increase due to their availability and ease of use‚ that doesn't mean that the internet is dead. The majority of content is still produced by humans‚ even if traffic is edging closer to an even split between AI and humans.Like all good conspiracy theories‚ the Dead Internet Theory takes a kernel of truth or agreed sentiment (that the internet is getting worse‚ and that bot activity is increasing) and twists it into something it isn't. Bot activity is on the increase‚ and that's far from a good thing for the internet‚ particularly as this is the content the next generation of AI chatbots will be trained on. But the majority of content you see online and people on social media are not bots‚ and the internet is far from dead. For now.

Brace yourself folks this is not good news. King and gentoo penguins on islands between the Antarctic mainland and South America have been found dead from bird flu for the first time. Bird flu has been spreading across the globe‚ even causing the death of a polar bear in Alaska‚ and has now been reported to have reached the penguin colonies of the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic with potentially devastating consequences.The disease reached the isolated bird populations of the Antarctic region for the first time in October 2023 causing the deaths of brown skua (Stercorarius antarcticus).  Now‚ new reports from the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) show that the first penguin lives have been lost. At least one king penguin (Aptenodytes patagonicus) is suspected to have died in Fortuna Bay on the northeast coast of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. On Sea Lion Island the disease has also been detected in two gentoo penguin chicks (Pygoscelis papua) that were tested after being found dead. Thirty-five further adults and chicks were also reported to be either symptomatic or dead according to the Falklands Islands Government website.SCAR reports that more than 500‚000 thousand seabirds have died of the disease in South America with the migratory birds from South America likely spreading the disease further south. "There are over 200 chicks dead alongside a handful of adults‚" government spokesperson Sally Heathman told Reuters. The Falkland Islands lie roughly 1‚300 kilometers (800 miles) from the top of the Antarctic mainland and penguins aren't believed to travel these distances. Bird flu has been found in species in the Falkland Islands and the uninhabited islands further south.Image Credit: Peter Hermes Furian/Shutterstock"The arrival of this H5N1 virus in the Antarctic towards the end of last year rang alarm bells because of the risk it posed to wildlife in this fragile ecosystem. And while it is very sad to hear reports of penguins dying … it is unfortunately not at all surprising‚” Ed Hutchinson‚ a molecular virologist at the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research told the Guardian.As it stands the disease has not yet reached the Antarctic mainland. A map on the SCAR website shows the hotspots where the disease has currently been found. It's possible that since these birds live in such a remote area the disease has already reached them and is yet to be discovered‚ in a similar manner to the discovery of the polar bear death in Alaska earlier this year. Since penguins cluster together for the breeding season‚ if the disease reaches the mainland it could have the potential to wipe out many more. 

Periodical cicadas don’t emerge often – only once every 13 or 17 years‚ to be precise – but when they do they arrive in their millions‚ and even billions. It’s now accepted that this pattern of emergence helps them avoid falling in sync with any predators‚ but how do they know to emerge all at the same time? Well‚ that’s remained something of a mystery.Brood cicada emergences are a phenomenon that’s been recorded by humans as far back as biblical times. Now‚ a group of researchers decided it was about damn time we take a closer look at what could be driving them. We know that the cicadas emerge in spring‚ but living in the ground means that it’s not going to be the same temperature for every cicada waiting to go topside. Some patches of earth may be cooler than others‚ so if it was simply a matter of temperature‚ we would expect to see more patchy patterns of emergence. Using a random-field Ising model (RFIM)‚ the team was able to simulate the cicada experience‚ taking into account the microclimates they are exposed to in the soil. RFIM is a good model because it can show how the decisions of cicadas (represented by the spin of magnets) can be influenced not just by interactions with each other‚ but also by other external factors. So‚ in the same way that microclimates might influence cicada emergence decisions‚ the magnets’ spinning could be altered by random fields.    By mimicking the environmental conditions we see in real life in their model‚ they saw similar mass swarms of decision-making in their magnets‚ mimicking the swarms of cicadas that we experience in real life. These swarms even mimicked the duration and frequency of cicada brood emergence‚ lasting for several weeks and being broken up with small gaps between them. The theoretical approach suggests that cicada nymphs are unlikely to be able to tell when environmental conditions have tipped the threshold of 18°C (65°F) it was thought was needed to motivate them to emerge. Instead‚ they appear to be relying on a swarm-mind approach to decision-making that’s similar to consensus-building communication networks with distinct properties.This is exciting because it means they’ve established a good model for studying emergence behavior‚ but it doesn’t yet solve the mystery. The authors suggest that the next step involves going out in the field to test if communication by cicada nymphs underground really is the key. This means taking acoustical samples to see what the cicadas a saying while they’re lurking underground‚ if anything.They also want to establish a better understanding of the spatial variation in microclimates and get a stronger idea of the dynamics of emerging swarms. Considering that 2024 is bringing something of a cicadapocalypse‚ it could make for a testing field work season.For the first time in 221 years‚ two broods have lined up so in such a way that they’ll be emerging at the same time. Brood XIII and Brood XIX last did this in 1803‚ and it’s going to be one hell of a noisy reunion.Fingers crossed the sexually-transmitted‚ brain-snatching fungus doesn’t catch wind of their orgy…The study is published in the journal Physical Review E.

Meet Maggie‚ a charming Shih-Tzu bursting with personality‚ who lives with her loving family on Long Island. Her human sister‚ Eunice‚ can’t help but gush about her‚ saying‚ “She is the cutest! She has quite a personality. She loves to cuddle but is also a yapper at times. She’s very mischievous!” This mischievous nature of... The post Dad searches for missing dentures and loses it when he looks over at his dog appeared first on Animal Channel.

It seems hard to remember Generation X as a media object unto itself like the Millennials were until recently‚ but Gen X tastes did leave their mark on history. Imagine Henry Rollins walking into a cubicle-sea office floor and shouting‚ “Open your eyes! The suits are just trying to control us and this is their rat maze‚ man! We’re just going about our days like drones in a hive!” This caricature isn’t far from the real ethos of the 1990s. “Generation X” was coined in the 1991 novel "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture" by Douglas Coupland. Here’s a passage from one chapter named “I Am Not a Target Market": At the slightest provocation I’d have been willing to apologize for my working life – how I work from eight till five in front of a sperm-dissolving VDT performing abstract tasks that indirectly enslave the Third World. But then‚ hey! Come five o’clock‚ I’d go nuts! I’d streak my hair and drink beer brewed in Kenya. I’d wear bow ties and listen to alternative rock and slum in the arty part of town. This international best-seller really did carry the voice of its generation‚ with detachment and a thirst for authenticity dripping from everything down to the chapter title. Another passage‚ with emphasis added‚ makes explicit the Gen X antipathy toward the cubicle: I begin at the point where he once told me how he was at work and suffering from a case of “Sick Building Syndrome‚” saying‚ “The windows in the office building where I worked didn’t open that morning‚ and I was sitting in my cubicle‚ affectionately named the veal-fattening pen. I was getting sicker and more headachy by the minute as the airborne stew of office toxins and viruses recirculated — around and around — in the fans. Such "Fight Club"-style rebellions against “wearing a tie” and other explicit symbolic conventions of hierarchy were discredited as soon as they won the cultural battle. Cubicles and neckties lost their cachet among the most cutting-edge Silicon Valley startups‚ which by necessity needed to make do with industrial lofts‚ which invited a seemingly egalitarian open-plan layout where executives would mingle with the rank and file. Nothing was exclusive or private — which‚ again‚ is downstream from the organizational reality of startups where every employee is performing the duties of several roles. The office reimagined T_A_P/getty It became clear that the anti-cubicle rebels had succeeded with their revolution in 2005‚ when Google redesigned its headquarters in the open-office format. This inspired a wave of cargo-cult imitators who wanted to at least appear to be as innovative as Google. The trend perhaps peaked in 2015 when Facebook built the world’s largest open-plan floor designed to fit 2‚800 employees. By that time‚ 70% of offices in the United States followed an open plan. The language of “collaboration” and “openness” underpinned ubiquitous philosophical reasoning behind open-plan offices‚ echoing Frank Lloyd Wright’s justification for his 1939 Johnson Wax Headquarters that averted “fascist and totalitarian” tendencies by virtue of its open layout. As soon as the open-plan office came to define a generation‚ the numbers started calling it into question‚ utopian justifications be damned. A 2013 study concluded that workers in open-office environments become frustrated by distractions that led to poorer work performance. Nearly half of the surveyed workers in open offices said the lack of sound privacy was a significant problem for them‚ and more than 30% complained about the lack of visual privacy. Meanwhile‚ the ease of interaction with coworkers was found not to be a problem in any type of office‚ and in fact‚ those with private offices were least likely to identify their ability to communicate with colleagues as a problem. A 2009 meta-analysis of literature on barrier-free office design found that such designs resulted in lower job satisfaction‚ higher blood pressure‚ increased turnover‚ and lower productivity. Cubicles‚ it turns out‚ were a way to fix these rather obvious problems in the first place‚ and their drawbacks seem to be aesthetic complaints about the conformity of being confined to identical boxes under fluorescent light rather than a substantive criticism of corporate hierarchy. A boss without a tie still has the power to order you around and fire you‚ and an open office can easily be a panopticon without space for reflection or autonomy. Tech giants take open offices a step farther by filling their campuses with utopian-seeming amenities — foosball tables‚ laundry services‚ swimming pools — that are actually designed to muddle the work-life distinction and prevent workers from leaving. By the mid-2010s‚ the open office had acquired the hated role that cubicles occupied in the 1990s‚ perhaps with a little more saccharine sugarcoating sprinkled on top. A 2014 article from the Washington Post criticizing the open office sums up that era’s exhaustion with the trend. But the piece makes an ominous endorsement of a new kind of white-collar utopia: On the other hand‚ companies could simply join another trend — allowing employees to work from home. That model has proven to boost productivity‚ with employees working more hours and taking fewer breaks. On top of that‚ there are fewer interruptions when employees work remotely. At home‚ my greatest distraction is the refrigerator. This reads like a naive horror-movie protagonist setting up the audience for a sequel. And it kind of is. Just like at the tech campuses where hundreds of thousands of workers escaped for the comforts of home‚ the work-life balance was blurred. Your place of leisure becomes a productivity tomb that you never escape by schedule but only by intention. For everyone else‚ the dream of remote work met its consummation in a compromise: You can live in the city of your choice‚ but one corner of your one-bedroom is your work life and the other corner is your life's work. Everyone who loves remote work is one of two types of person. The first are the nomads‚ who have the superhuman capacity to be productive while hunched over their laptops at a tiny table in any given cafe. The second are the outer suburbanites‚ who have the space needed for a home office and all the buffer space required to maintain the home as a place for family and leisure. In their very different ways‚ both are content to live their lives alone. For everyone else‚ the dream of remote work met its consummation in a compromise: You can live in the city of your choice‚ but one corner of your one-bedroom is your work life and the other corner is your life's work. There is no space‚ figurative or literal‚ between home as office and home as rest. One of the pieces of wisdom gleaned from the COVID era is that people actually like being around each other‚ including the people you share your productive life with. But only having colleagues embodied as video calls sucks‚ just like being alone in the same space all day sucks. And like many things that suck‚ a world where everyone works from an electronic cubicle was a utopia anticipated by visionaries. Management guru Peter Drucker said in 1993 that “commuting to office work is obsolete‚” an early declaration of the digital age’s dream of doing the job from a ski lodge or a Sicilian beach. But this is just a series of white-collar workers pining for something else.

Looking for some good games like Animal Crossing on PC? Well‚ wish granted below. Nintendo finally gave Animal Crossing fans what they wanted when it released the next entry in the fantastic village simulation series. Now here we are a few years later‚ still basking in the aftermath of one of Nintendo's most successful launches. A Nintendo Switch isn't cheap‚ though. Especially if all you're interested in is Animal Crossing. Fortunately for PC players‚ the best games on Animal Crossing don't just appear on the Switch. Grab your shovel for fossil hunting‚ a net to catch those bugs catching‚ and a creative attitude for interior decorating‚ because these are the best PC games when it comes to recreating Animal Crossing's unique approach to relaxation. Continue reading Games like Animal Crossing on PC MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Stardew Valley multiplayer‚ Stardew Valley realism‚ The best Stardew Valley mods