Clipmarks | Experiment Clips

Frozen Mars North Pole Ice Patterns Observed by HiRISE

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 08:26:57 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Have to get out the mittens for this trip.

Translucent ice and sand dunes in North Polar Region. Image rotated 90° clockwise (NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)

As the Phoenix Mars lander will agree, it's cold near Mars' North Pole. Phoenix is currently seeing the winter frost encroach on its location, bright patches of ice appearing on the rocks surrounding it. Another sure sign of winter at this high latitude is the loss of light; soon day will turn to night, forcing Phoenix to enter a Sun-deprived coma.

But as one Mars mission draws to a close, other missions continue their diligent watch over the planet 24/7. One such mission is NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), using its High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (or HiRISE for short) to pick out the tiny surface features on the Red Planet from around 320 km (200 miles) above.

As winter sets in on the Martian northern hemisphere, HiRISE continues to capture some stunning images of the translucent icy surface…

Tags: space

Test explores if robots can think

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 06:14:26 GMT

clipped by: A53GG4

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Test explores if robots can think

An experiment has been taking place in Berkshire to see if robots are capable of intelligent thought.

No computer has passed the test by fooling 30% of its human interrogators

Scientists at the University of Reading tested five machines to see if they could pass themselves off as humans in text-based conversations with people.

The test was devised in 1950 by British Mathematician Alan Turing, who said that if a machine was indistinguishable from a human, then it was "thinking".

One robot, Elbot, came close on Sunday by reaching 5% below the pass mark.

No robot has ever passed the Turing Test, which requires the robot to fool 30% of its human interrogators.

During the experiment, five artificial conversational entities (ACEs) competed in a series of five-minute long, unrestricted conversational tests.

Artificial intelligence

"During the tests, all of the ACEs managed to fool at least one of their human interrogators," a University of Reading spokesman said.

Tags: science

Ambaji pilgrims pledge before Goddess to fight female foeticide

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 05:13:42 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.indianexpress.com

Pilgrims at the famous Ambaji temple in Banaskantha district found a new way to check the dwindling female sex ratio in the state - ‘Sankalp Patras’. The Ambaji Temple Committee members made the devotees sign the ‘Sankalp Patras’ to curb sex discrimination and female foeticide, along with a pledge to save the girl child. A total of five lakh ‘Sankalp Patras’ were signed.

“While the idea has been implemented for the first time at any religious place, the chances of its success are quite high as people have willingly taken a pledge before the goddess and are most likely to abide by it.

Patel said: “We have plans to extend the experiment to other religious destinations in the area as well. This is for the first time that such an experiment has been undertaken at a religious place in the state. However, with the active participation of future devotees, the awareness campaign is bound to be effective.”

Tags: goddess, faith, babies, female, religion, infanticide

Turing Test

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 01:09:03 GMT

clipped by: eemotion
clipper's remarks: Elbot

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

The test was devised in 1950 by British Mathematician Alan Turing, who said that if a machine was indistinguishable from a human, then it was "thinking".

One robot, Elbot, came close on Sunday by reaching 5% below the pass mark.

No robot has ever passed the Turing Test, which requires the robot to fool 30% of its human interrogators.

During the experiment, five artificial conversational entities (ACEs) competed in a series of five-minute long, unrestricted conversational tests.

Tags: elbot, ai, turing test

Home Pregnancy Test

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 09:49:09 GMT

clipped by: jimmy123
clipper's remarks: Since pregnancy kickstarts production of the hCG hormone (human chorionic gonadotrophin), a home pregnancy test is aimed at detecting its presence in urine, and each year consumers spend more than $175 million on them.

While a home pregnancy test can be effective, hCG beta blood tests done at your doctor's office are in fact substantially more sensitive (they can detect hCG within ten days of conception) and, they give quantitative results (not the qualitative yes/no of a pregnancy test).

Clip Source: www.conceivingconcepts.com

Produced by the placenta and detected by a home pregnancy test, the pregnancy hormone hCG appears following fertilization. Its job is to make sure the corpus luteum makes progesterone. hCG is considered an effective indicator of pregnancy because of its appearance in urine or blood, and its somewhat dependable rise in concentration, during the first phases of gestation.

Choosing a Home Pregnancy Test

HPTs generally come in two forms:

mid-stream tests: you hold one end of a stick in your hand and urinate on the other end

urine well tests: you urinate into a cup, then use a dropper to remove a sample and drop it into a urine well on the test unit.

While many of the tests exhibit varying degrees of sensitivity to hCG, the majority can detect the hormone within about two weeks of conception (First Response Early Detection boasts eleven days). Ultimately you should experiment with different HPTs to ascertain which ones you like or don’t like.

Tags: home, pregnancy test

Ice loss in Greenland

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 21:49:00 GMT

clipped by: shaor

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

An Accurate Picture Of Ice Loss In Greenland

ScienceDaily (Oct. 10, 2008) — Researchers from TU Delft joined forces with the Center for Space Research (CSR) in Austin, Texas, USA, to develop a method for creating an accurate picture of Greenland’s shrinking ice cap. On the strength of this method, it is now estimated that Greenland is accountable for a half millimetre-rise in the global sea level per year.

The research was based on data from the German-American GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) satellites, two satellites that have been orbiting the earth behind each other since mid-2002. Deviations in the earth’s gravitational field cause fluctuations in the distance between the satellites, which is measured to a precision of a millionth of a metre. As gravity is directly related to mass, these data can be used to plot changes in the earth’s water balance, such as the disappearance of the ice caps.

Earth & Climate

University Students Demonstrate Just How Easy it is to Rig an Election

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 11:16:05 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: No wonder so many don't bother voting, Americans have no control over who they vote for

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

As part of his advanced computer science class, Rice University Associate Professor and Director of Rice's Computer Security Lab Dan Wallach instructed his students to do their very best to rig a voting machine in the classroom. The results are a bit frightening. The undergraduate and graduate students discovered first-hand that it’s fairly easy to manipulate computer software used in today's voting machines.

Here's how the experiment played out:

Wallach splits his class into teams. In phase one, the teams pretend to be unscrupulous programmers at a voting machine company. Their task: Make subtle changes to the machines' software -- changes that will alter the election's outcome but that cannot be detected by election officials.

In the second phase of the experiment, the teams are told to play the part of the election's software regulators. Their task is to certify the code submitted by another team in the first phase of the class.

it's very easy to insert subtle changes to the voting

Tags: corruption

Mice overcome fear depression with natural prozac

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 02:39:57 GMT

clipped by: LisbethJ
clipper's remarks: Time to meditate

Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

Mice overcome fear, depression with natural Prozac

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The brain can produce antidepressants with the right signal, a finding that suggests that meditating, or going to your "happy place," truly works, scientists reported on Wednesday.

Mice forced to swim endlessly until they surrendered and just floated, waiting to drown, could be conditioned to regain their will to live when a tone they associated with safety was played.

The experiment suggests that there are good ways to teach people this skill, and points to new routes for developing better antidepressants, said Dr. Eric Kandel of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Columbia University in New York, who led the research.

"The happy place works. This is like going to the country," Kandel said in a telephone interview.

This shows how effective psychotherapy, meditation and other stress-reduction tools may be, and it could help in the design of new drugs, Kandel said.

'Intelligent' computers put to the test

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 08:42:04 GMT

clipped by: tabsey

Clip Source: richarddawkins.net

Can machines think? That was the question posed by the great mathematician Alan Turing. Half a century later six computers are about to converse with human interrogators in an experiment that will attempt to prove that the answer is yes.

In the Turing test a machine seeks to fool judges into believing that it could be human. The test is performed by conducting a text-based conversation on any subject. If the computer's responses are indistinguishable from those of a human, it has passed the Turing test and can be said to be "thinking".

The test will be carried out by human "interrogators", each sitting at a computer with a split screen: one half will be operated by an unseen human, the other by a program. The interrogators will then begin separate, simultaneous text-based conversations with both of them on any subjects they choose. After five minutes they will be asked to judge which is which. If they get it wrong, or are not sure, the program will have fooled them.

Tags: computers

The Hills Beauty Secrets

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 14:28:46 GMT

clipped by: stevehaddin
clipper's remarks: Lauren’s been through her share of drama in her feud with The Hills costar Heidi Montag, emerging troubles with Audrina Patridge and of course, her topsy turvy love life.

Clip Source: www.beautyandfashionnews.com

The Hills Beauty Secrets: Lauren Conrad.

Lauren’s been through her share of drama in her feud with The Hills costar Heidi Montag, emerging troubles with Audrina Patridge and of course, her topsy turvy love life. Through all the ups and downs, one thing has remained consistent: Lauren’s flawless style. Here are her tips for staying beautiful when life hands you lemons and then airs those lemons on cable TV.

“I got into ridiculous colors. I just bought an electric blue, and then in Sephora they have press-on foils and it lasts just like nail polish. … I just got glitter, too, I found it in like a cheap party store. But if you layer it on it’s just solid glitter. Your nails look really cool. That’s a place where you can experiment.”

Tags: hills beauty secrets, laurens conrad flawless style, beach spray, liquid eyeliner by mark, undereye concealer, mascara in black

Toy Robot Intended to Save Humans

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 11:13:40 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus
clipper's remarks: This narrative, crafted by Hugo award winner Tony Daniel and University of Texas performance professor Thomas Riccio, is intended to make Zeno into a character that people identify with and want to to see develop — something with the depth of a movie character or a figure from a Homerian epic.

That makes Zeno into as much of a sociological experiment as it is a technical marvel or fun toy.

"The idea is to create a cultural phenomenon and accelerate the use and humanization of the technology,"

Where story, game, reality, toys are not differentiable anymore.

Clip Source: blog.wired.com

Toy Robot Intended to Save Humans From Evil, Future Bots

When roboticist David Hanson thinks of the future, he fears that man will accidentally create a super-sentient artificial intelligence that is heartless and clinically insane.

So to save the world, he formed Hanson Robotics and built Zeno, a 17-inch robot boy, who smiles, laughs, recognizes your face and remembers your name.

Zeno already does "know" people, and in his mind, has a knowledge container that stores a photo of the person and details about that person. The next step is getting Zeno to start making theories about the world, discarding the dumb ones and amplifying the plausible ones.

Zeno is himself a visitor from the future — a robot who reached consciousness in 2029, but is found by government web crawlers. From there he's put into a government academy for artificially intelligent robots, where those in charge may have nefarious motives.

Tags: robot, future

Intelligent Computers Put To The Test

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 04:05:51 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: It could also raise profound questions about whether a computer has the potential to be 'conscious' - and if humans should have the 'right' to switch it off.

>>> I haven't seen humans having too much problem in 'shutting off' each other. What does it say about consciousness ?

Clip Source: neuronion.blogspot.com

In the 'Turing test' a machine seeks to fool judges into believing that it could be human. The test is performed by conducting a text-based conversation on any subject. If the computer's responses are indistinguishable from those of a human, it has passed the Turing test and can be said to be 'thinking'.

But at 9am next Sunday, six computer programs - 'artificial conversational entities' - will answer questions posed by human volunteers at the University of Reading in a bid to become the first recognised 'thinking' machine.

If any program succeeds, it is likely to be hailed as the most significant breakthrough in artificial intelligence since the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue beat world chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997.

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Tags: artificial intelligence, turing test

Our new Messiah!

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 02:40:01 GMT

clipped by: jesterbme
clipper's remarks: Just doin' the Lord's work!

Clip Source: obamamessiah.blogspot.com

But he’ll do even more. He won’t just heal our city-states and souls. He won’t just bring the Heavenly Kingdom — dreamt of in both Platonism and Christianity — to earth. He will heal the earth itself.

Many even see in Obama a messiah-like figure, a great soul, and some affectionately call him Mahatma Obama.

Like the Mahatma [Gandhi], Obama is becoming a global symbol of the 'hopes and dreams' of millions around the world.

"This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased."

Many spiritually advanced people I know (not coweringly religious, mind you, but deeply spiritual) identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment. These kinds of people actually help us evolve.

Illusion or Evolution

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 17:02:56 GMT

clipped by: AainaA

Clip Source: www.redicecreations.com

The Amazing Holographic Universe

In 1982 a remarkable event took place. At the University of Paris a research team led by physicist Alain Aspect performed what may turn out to be one of the most important experiments of the 20th century. You did not hear about it on the evening news. In fact, unless you are in the habit of reading scientific journals you probably have never even heard Aspect's name, though there are some who believe his discovery may change the face of science.

To enable people to better visualize what he means, Bohm offers the following illustration.

Imagine an aquarium containing a fish. Imagine also that you are unable to see the aquarium directly and your knowledge about it and what it contains comes from two television cameras, one directed at the aquarium's front and the other directed at its side.

This, says Bohm, is precisely what is going on between the subatomic particles in Aspect's experiment.

Tags: holography, universe, creation

EXPERIENCES from the OSHO International Meditation Resort

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 16:01:00 GMT

clipped by: Michael Black
clipper's remarks: The OSHO International Meditation Resort is unique in the world – an environment created for individual experiment. Located in Pune, India, about 150 Km southeast of Mumbai, the resort and its OSHO Multiversity offer hundreds of courses, classes, and programs in self-discovery and meditation. Visitors from more than 100 countries visit this luxury resort, and participate in programs year-round.

Clip Source: video.google.com

[Video]

Tags: video