Come iOS 8, you might soon be able to ask your iPhone what song is playing and get an answer. Apple is reportedly prepping an update to Siri that will enable music identification. Instead of rolling their own music ID software and library, however, Apple is doing as they've done with many Siri features and partnering with an existing force in the space — in this case, music ID powerhouse Shazam.
Like ghosts? Then you'll love Poveglia, a small, deserted island in the Venetian lagoon that's going on the auction block next month. It's been called "the island of madness," "Hell," and "the most haunted place on Earth." You'd just love it to pieces.
If your arm falls asleep for a while, it can sort of feel like it's made of rubber. But how do you make your arm feel like it's made of marble? According to Italian researchers, all you need is the sound of a hammer tapping stone. And some psychological trickery.
IBM's engineers must have been at a loose end, because they've just launched a new site called the IBMblr Fractalizer, which takes any Tumblr and spits it out as a series of fractals.
Contact: Jason Socrates Bardi jbardi@aip.org 240-535-4954 American Physical Society
'Underwater rocket' technology described at APS Division of Fluid Dynamics Meeting uses novel spherical joint mechanism
WASHINGTON D.C. Nov. 14, 2013 -- Back in 1991, Nature published a picture from the IMAX movie Antarctica, along with the caption: "Emperor penguins may be waddling jokes on land, but underwater they can turn into regular rocketsaccelerating from 0 to 7 m/s in less than a second."
That's all it took to inspire Flavio Noca, who at the time was a graduate student in Caltech's Aeronautics Department, and now teaches aerodynamics at the University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland (hepia) and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), to explore leveraging penguins' "rocket" properties to create new propulsion technologies with high maneuverability and improved hydrodynamic efficiency.
At the American Physical Society's (APS) Division of Fluid Dynamics meeting, Nov. 24 26, in Pittsburgh, Pa, Noca will present a penguin-inspired propulsion system that uses a novel spherical joint mechanism developed and manufactured by Bassem Sudki, a research assistant within Noca's aerodynamics group, under the supervision of Professor Michel Lauria who leads hepia's Robotics Laboratory.
Based on a penguin's shoulder-and-wing system, the mechanism features a spherical joint that enables three degrees of freedom and a fixed center of rotation. "Unlike an animal shoulder joint, however, this spherical joint enables unlimited rotational range about the main shaft axis like a propeller," Noca said.
To achieve this they needed to overcome the technical challenges of spherical joints, such as the lack of rigidity and the inability to generate high torques. To understand the challenge involved, just try lifting a 10-pound weight on your hand with your arm extended.
The researchers maneuvered around these challenges by choosing a parallel robotic architecture for this type of mechanism, because it enables rigidity as well as high actuation frequencies and amplitudes.
"Because the motors are fixed, inertial forces are lower than for a serial robotic mechanism, such as a multi-joint arm," explains Noca. "The resulting spherical parallel mechanism with coaxial shafts was designed and manufactured with these specifications: a fixed center of rotation (spherical joint), a working frequency of ~2.5 Hz under charge, an unlimited rotation about the main axis, and an arbitrary motion within a cone of +/- 60."
The manner in which penguins swim is still poorly understood, aside from the technological perspective, according to Noca. "By accurately reproducing an actual penguin wing movement, we hope to shed light on the swimming mysteries of these underwater rockets," he said.
###
The talk, "Robotic Penguin-like Propulsor with Novel Spherical Joint," is at is at 2:36 p.m. on Tuesday, November 26, 2013 in the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, Room 321. ABSTRACT: http://meeting.aps.org/Meeting/DFD13/Event/204311
MEETING INFORMATION
The 66th Annual Division of Fluid Dynamics Meeting will be held at David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from November 24-26, 2013. More meeting information: http://www.apsdfd2013.pitt.edu
REGISTERING AS PRESS
Any credentialed journalist, full-time or freelance, may attend the conference free of charge. Please email: dfdmedia@aps.org and include "DFD Press" in the subject line. Work space will be provided on-site during the meeting and news and graphics will be hosted on the Virtual Press Room: http://www.aps.org/units/dfd/pressroom/press.cfm
ABOUT THE APS DIVISION OF FLUID DYNAMICS
The Division of Fluid Dynamics of the American Physical Society (APS) exists for the advancement and diffusion of knowledge of the physics of fluids with special emphasis on the dynamical theories of the liquid, plastic and gaseous states of matter under all conditions of temperature and pressure. DFD Website: http://www.aps.org/units/dfd/index.cfm
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Penguin-inspired propulsion system
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
14-Nov-2013
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Contact: Jason Socrates Bardi jbardi@aip.org 240-535-4954 American Physical Society
'Underwater rocket' technology described at APS Division of Fluid Dynamics Meeting uses novel spherical joint mechanism
WASHINGTON D.C. Nov. 14, 2013 -- Back in 1991, Nature published a picture from the IMAX movie Antarctica, along with the caption: "Emperor penguins may be waddling jokes on land, but underwater they can turn into regular rocketsaccelerating from 0 to 7 m/s in less than a second."
That's all it took to inspire Flavio Noca, who at the time was a graduate student in Caltech's Aeronautics Department, and now teaches aerodynamics at the University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland (hepia) and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), to explore leveraging penguins' "rocket" properties to create new propulsion technologies with high maneuverability and improved hydrodynamic efficiency.
At the American Physical Society's (APS) Division of Fluid Dynamics meeting, Nov. 24 26, in Pittsburgh, Pa, Noca will present a penguin-inspired propulsion system that uses a novel spherical joint mechanism developed and manufactured by Bassem Sudki, a research assistant within Noca's aerodynamics group, under the supervision of Professor Michel Lauria who leads hepia's Robotics Laboratory.
Based on a penguin's shoulder-and-wing system, the mechanism features a spherical joint that enables three degrees of freedom and a fixed center of rotation. "Unlike an animal shoulder joint, however, this spherical joint enables unlimited rotational range about the main shaft axis like a propeller," Noca said.
To achieve this they needed to overcome the technical challenges of spherical joints, such as the lack of rigidity and the inability to generate high torques. To understand the challenge involved, just try lifting a 10-pound weight on your hand with your arm extended.
The researchers maneuvered around these challenges by choosing a parallel robotic architecture for this type of mechanism, because it enables rigidity as well as high actuation frequencies and amplitudes.
"Because the motors are fixed, inertial forces are lower than for a serial robotic mechanism, such as a multi-joint arm," explains Noca. "The resulting spherical parallel mechanism with coaxial shafts was designed and manufactured with these specifications: a fixed center of rotation (spherical joint), a working frequency of ~2.5 Hz under charge, an unlimited rotation about the main axis, and an arbitrary motion within a cone of +/- 60."
The manner in which penguins swim is still poorly understood, aside from the technological perspective, according to Noca. "By accurately reproducing an actual penguin wing movement, we hope to shed light on the swimming mysteries of these underwater rockets," he said.
###
The talk, "Robotic Penguin-like Propulsor with Novel Spherical Joint," is at is at 2:36 p.m. on Tuesday, November 26, 2013 in the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, Room 321. ABSTRACT: http://meeting.aps.org/Meeting/DFD13/Event/204311
MEETING INFORMATION
The 66th Annual Division of Fluid Dynamics Meeting will be held at David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from November 24-26, 2013. More meeting information: http://www.apsdfd2013.pitt.edu
REGISTERING AS PRESS
Any credentialed journalist, full-time or freelance, may attend the conference free of charge. Please email: dfdmedia@aps.org and include "DFD Press" in the subject line. Work space will be provided on-site during the meeting and news and graphics will be hosted on the Virtual Press Room: http://www.aps.org/units/dfd/pressroom/press.cfm
ABOUT THE APS DIVISION OF FLUID DYNAMICS
The Division of Fluid Dynamics of the American Physical Society (APS) exists for the advancement and diffusion of knowledge of the physics of fluids with special emphasis on the dynamical theories of the liquid, plastic and gaseous states of matter under all conditions of temperature and pressure. DFD Website: http://www.aps.org/units/dfd/index.cfm
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Chart shows mobility rate of young adults age 25-29; 2c x 2 1/2 inches; 96.3 mm x 63 mm;
Chart shows mobility rate of young adults age 25-29; 2c x 2 1/2 inches; 96.3 mm x 63 mm;
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. mobility for young adults has fallen to the lowest level in more than 50 years as cash-strapped 20-somethings shun home-buying and refrain from major moves in a weak job market.
The new 2013 figures from the Census Bureau, which reversed earlier signs of recovery, underscore the impact of the sluggish economy on young people, many of them college graduates, whom demographers sometimes refer to as "Generation Wait."
Burdened with college debt or toiling in low-wage jobs, they are delaying careers, marriage and having children. Waiting anxiously for their lucky break, they are staying put and doubling up with roommates or living with Mom and dad, unable to make long-term plans or commit to buying a home — let alone pay a mortgage.
Many understood after the 2007-2009 recession that times would be tough. But few say they expected to be in economic limbo more than four years later.
"I'm constantly looking for other jobs," says Jeremy Bills, 27, of Nashville, Tenn., who graduated from Vanderbilt University in May 2011 with a master's degree in human and organizational development. Originally from Tampa, Fla., Bills has stayed put in his college town in hopes of finding a job in management consulting or human resources. Instead, he has mostly found odd jobs like pulling weeds and dog-sitting.
Bills says he pursued a master's degree to bolster his credentials after getting his college diploma in 2008, shortly before the financial meltdown. Instead, he finds himself still struggling financially and worrying that the skills he learned in school — where he incurred $20,000 in student loan debt — are "kind of atrophying right now."
"It's not like riding a bicycle. You can't just jump into a career position so many years after training," said Bills, who now works at a nonprofit organization making $12 an hour and is looking for a second job.
Among adults ages 25-29, just 4.9 million, or 23.3 percent, moved in the 12 months ending March 2013. That's down from 24.6 percent in the same period the year before. It was the lowest level since at least 1963. The peak of 36.7 percent came in 1965, during the nation's youth counterculture movement.
The past year's decline in migration came after a modest increase from 2011 to 2012, a sign that young adults remain tentative about testing the job market in other cities.
By metropolitan area, Portland, Ore., Austin, Texas, and Houston were among the top gainers in young adults, reflecting stronger local economies. Among college graduates 25 and older, Denver and Washington, D.C., topped the list of destinations.
Demographers say the delays in traditional markers of adulthood — full-time careers and homeownership — may prove to be longer-lasting.
Roughly 1 in 5 young adults ages 25 to 34 is now disconnected from work and school.
"Young adulthood has grown much more complex and protracted, with a huge number struggling to reach financial independence," said Mark Mather, an associate vice president at the private Population Reference Bureau. "Many will get there, but at much later ages than we've seen in the past. More and more we're seeing many young adults routinely wait until their 30s to leave the parental nest."
The overall decline in migration among young adults is being driven largely by a drop in local moves within a county, which fell to the lowest level on record. Out-of-state moves also fell, from 3.8 percent in 2012 to 3.4 percent, but remained higher than a 2010 low of 3.2 percent.
Young adults typically make long-distance moves to seek a new career, while those who make local moves often do so when buying a home.
While homeownership across all age groups fell by 3 percentage points to 65 percent from 2007 to 2012, the drop-off among adults 25-29 was much larger — more than 6 percentage points, from 40.6 percent to 34.3 percent. That reflects in part tighter lines of credit after the 2006 housing bust. Declines in homeownership for those ages 40 and older over in that five-year period were more modest.
The District of Columbia, with its high share of young adults, had the lowest homeownership rate across all age groups at 41.6 percent, followed by New York at 53.9 percent. West Virginia had the highest homeownership rate at 72.9 percent.
In terms of births, the birth rate for all women of childbearing age — 63 births per 1,000 women — was essentially flat in 2012 from the year before.
Meanwhile, overall migration among adults 55 and older held steady at 4.4 percent from 2012 to 2013, up from a low of 4 percent in 2011. Metro areas with the biggest gains included Phoenix, Atlanta, Denver and several in Florida. Many cities in the Northeast, Midwest and coastal areas posted losses.
"The post-recession period has given a bigger boost to seniors than to young adults in their willingness to try out new places for retirement," said William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution who analyzed the figures. "Many young adults, especially those without college degrees, are still stuck in place."
"For them, low mobility might be more than a temporary lull and could turn into the 'new normal.'"
The wait continues for Eric Hall, 30, of Decatur, Ga. After picking up a master's degree in public health in 2008, Hall moved from California to the Atlanta suburb with the plan of living with his parents for about six months.
Five years later, after struggling to find work in his field and switching his career path last year from health management to teaching kindergarten, Hall has opted to remain at his parents' home until he can pay off more debt. He is now studying to earn a doctorate in education, amassing college debt of more than $110,000.
"It's a bit restraining after going away to college two times, but I'm saving and my mom's been very understanding," said Hall, who is optimistic he'll soon be financially stable enough to live on his own. "Maybe next summer."
___
Associated Press writer Travis Loller in Nashville, Tenn., contributed to this report.
Everyone is already all over this whole 3D printing thing. But 3D painting? It's a much emptier field. GE is experimenting with such a technology called "cold spray" that slowly builds up layers of metal by spraying metal powder at extremely high velocities. Instead of recreating works of art, the ...
The Economist honors cancer immunotherapy pioneer James Allison
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
7-Nov-2013
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Contact: Scott Merville smerville@mdanderson.org 713-792-0661 University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center
2013 Innovation Award for bioscience goes to MD Anderson scientist
HOUSTON For basic science research that opened a completely new approach for treating cancer, The Economist has named James Allison, Ph.D., professor and chair of Immunology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, as its 2013 Innovations Award winner in Bioscience.
Allison identified an immune checkpoint molecule that turns off T cells white blood cells that are the attack dogs of the immune system before they can mount a successful response to tumors that they are primed to destroy.
An antibody that blocks that immune checkpoint molecule, unleashing a T cell attack, became the first drug to ever extend survival for patients with late-stage melanoma. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved ipilumumab (Yervoy) for treatment of metastatic melanoma in 2011.
"The approval of ipilimumab in 2011 represents the culmination of years of research by Dr Allison into tumor immunotherapy," said Tom Standage, Digital Editor at The Economist and chairman of the panel of 30 judges. "We are delighted to recognize his pioneering achievement in the fight against cancer."
The Economist is a 170-year-old weekly news publication based in London with a circulation of 4.5 million worldwide. Its Innovation Awards recognize significant contributions in eight fields: Bioscience, Computing and Telecommunications, Consumer Products, Energy and Environment, Process and Services, Social and Economic, No Boundaries and Corporate.
"I'm honored to receive this award, which recognizes the increasing importance of immune therapy in the treatment of cancer due to the efforts of many scientists, clinicians and patients willing to participate in clinical trials," Allison said.
The adaptive immune system routinely identifies, destroys and remembers infections and abnormal cells. Yet cancer cells evade or suppress immune attack, largely frustrating efforts to develop vaccines and other immune therapies against tumors.
Drug treats immune system, not specific tumor
"Immune checkpoint blockade treats the immune system, not the tumor, so we expect this approach to work across many types of cancer," Allison said. In addition to melanoma, ipilumumab has been effective in clinical trials against prostate, kidney, lung and ovarian cancers.
Allison's basic science research on T cell biology uncovered the receptor on these cells used to recognize and bind to antigens abnormalities that mark defective cells or viruses and bacteria for attack.
He also found that T cells require a second molecular signal to launch a response after they've bound to an antigen. And he identified a molecule called CTLA-4 that acts as an off switch to inhibit activated T cells from attacking.
This led to development of ipilumumab to block CTLA-4. In clinical trials against stage 4 melanoma, the drug extinguished the disease in 20 percent of patients for up to 12 years and counting.
Since arriving at MD Anderson in November 2012, Allison founded and directs an immunotherapy platform to cultivate, support and test new development of immunology-based drugs and combinations. MD Anderson's Moon Shots program, designed to accelerate the conversion of scientific discoveries into clinical advances that reduce cancer deaths, taps the expertise of the immunotherapy platform.
Allison earned his doctorate from The University of Texas at Austin in 1978, joining MD Anderson's faculty after his postdoctoral fellowship. He left MD Anderson for the University of California, Berkeley and later moved to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies and has won many honors for biomedical research, including the first AACR-CRI Lloyd J. Old Award in Cancer Immunology at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in April 2013.
Allison will receive his award at a ceremony in London on Dec. 3.
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The Economist honors cancer immunotherapy pioneer James Allison
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
7-Nov-2013
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Contact: Scott Merville smerville@mdanderson.org 713-792-0661 University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center
2013 Innovation Award for bioscience goes to MD Anderson scientist
HOUSTON For basic science research that opened a completely new approach for treating cancer, The Economist has named James Allison, Ph.D., professor and chair of Immunology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, as its 2013 Innovations Award winner in Bioscience.
Allison identified an immune checkpoint molecule that turns off T cells white blood cells that are the attack dogs of the immune system before they can mount a successful response to tumors that they are primed to destroy.
An antibody that blocks that immune checkpoint molecule, unleashing a T cell attack, became the first drug to ever extend survival for patients with late-stage melanoma. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved ipilumumab (Yervoy) for treatment of metastatic melanoma in 2011.
"The approval of ipilimumab in 2011 represents the culmination of years of research by Dr Allison into tumor immunotherapy," said Tom Standage, Digital Editor at The Economist and chairman of the panel of 30 judges. "We are delighted to recognize his pioneering achievement in the fight against cancer."
The Economist is a 170-year-old weekly news publication based in London with a circulation of 4.5 million worldwide. Its Innovation Awards recognize significant contributions in eight fields: Bioscience, Computing and Telecommunications, Consumer Products, Energy and Environment, Process and Services, Social and Economic, No Boundaries and Corporate.
"I'm honored to receive this award, which recognizes the increasing importance of immune therapy in the treatment of cancer due to the efforts of many scientists, clinicians and patients willing to participate in clinical trials," Allison said.
The adaptive immune system routinely identifies, destroys and remembers infections and abnormal cells. Yet cancer cells evade or suppress immune attack, largely frustrating efforts to develop vaccines and other immune therapies against tumors.
Drug treats immune system, not specific tumor
"Immune checkpoint blockade treats the immune system, not the tumor, so we expect this approach to work across many types of cancer," Allison said. In addition to melanoma, ipilumumab has been effective in clinical trials against prostate, kidney, lung and ovarian cancers.
Allison's basic science research on T cell biology uncovered the receptor on these cells used to recognize and bind to antigens abnormalities that mark defective cells or viruses and bacteria for attack.
He also found that T cells require a second molecular signal to launch a response after they've bound to an antigen. And he identified a molecule called CTLA-4 that acts as an off switch to inhibit activated T cells from attacking.
This led to development of ipilumumab to block CTLA-4. In clinical trials against stage 4 melanoma, the drug extinguished the disease in 20 percent of patients for up to 12 years and counting.
Since arriving at MD Anderson in November 2012, Allison founded and directs an immunotherapy platform to cultivate, support and test new development of immunology-based drugs and combinations. MD Anderson's Moon Shots program, designed to accelerate the conversion of scientific discoveries into clinical advances that reduce cancer deaths, taps the expertise of the immunotherapy platform.
Allison earned his doctorate from The University of Texas at Austin in 1978, joining MD Anderson's faculty after his postdoctoral fellowship. He left MD Anderson for the University of California, Berkeley and later moved to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies and has won many honors for biomedical research, including the first AACR-CRI Lloyd J. Old Award in Cancer Immunology at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in April 2013.
Allison will receive his award at a ceremony in London on Dec. 3.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Local delivery startup Postmates has been growing fast, which is a good problem to have. That is, unless demand is completely outstripping supply. With that in mind, the company is taking a big step toward regulating demand with the implementation of a new Uber-like Surge Pricing program called “Blitz.”
Postmates is now in three cities: San Francisco, Seattle, and New York. But in each case, the biggest problem that it currently faces is having enough couriers to actually make deliveries, according to CEO Bastian Lehmann. While it’s been aggressively on-boarding new Postmates, frequent customers might have noticed that sometimes it might not even be possible to get someone to make a delivery.
As a result, it’s decided to make a change that some other startups have made when faced with more demand than supply — it’s instituting Uber-like dynamic pricing that will scale up the cost of delivery when it sees higher demand. While Uber calls this “Surge Pricing,” Postmates calls its dynamic pricing “Blitz Pricing,”* but it kind of works in the same way.
The new Blitz pricing model is designed to help the platform to regulate demand for what is a finite resource — that is, the number of couriers that the company has available. Customers who try to order during those times will see a bigass notification (see above) letting them know Blitz pricing is underway, and will be able to accept the pricing. Or not.
In times of high demand, that means increasing the price by a certain percentage and allowing customers to decide if they really need whatever it is they’re ordering right away, or if they can wait until there are fewer orders in the system and more Postmates actually available.
Notifications during peak demand is just one way that Postmates is trying to be more transparent about its delivery pricing. While the company instituted dynamic pricing more than a year ago, changing from its previous flat-fee structure for all deliveries, it hadn’t done a great job of letting people know how much they would be charged.
Previously, its pricing model took into account a number of different factors: distance from restaurant, time of day, how quickly the restaurant processed the order, all kinds of junk. Now the pricing during non-peak hours is based solely on the distance from restaurant to dropoff.
Lazy and want someone to bring you food from the restaurant next door? That’ll be $5. Ordering from all the way across town? Deliveries cap out at $12 a piece. Either way, Postmates lets you know exactly what you’ll pay for that delivery.
That change is meant to create greater order density in specific neighborhoods, which keeps turnaround times faster and improves efficiency. Because being mo’ closer means mo’ orders delivered.
Blitz pricing should help regulate demand, as the company continues to onboard more Postmates. Lehmann says it recently streamlined that process, which should eventually help it to meet demand as the company grows. In the meantime, you might have to pay a few more cents when ordering your Jamba Juice every day, says Vungle CEO Jack Smith.
== * Presumably because Postmates co-founder and CEO Bastian Lehmann is German.
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Everyone is already all over this whole 3D printing thing. But 3D painting? It's a much emptier field. GE is experimenting with such a technology called "cold spray" that slowly builds up layers of metal by spraying metal powder at extremely high velocities. Instead of recreating works of art, the ...
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