Tuesday 08-18-15

Be a little spotty posting for a few days, going to WVA, to do some canoeing, fishing, and biking.



Constantly checking your mobile phone can lead to 'cognitive failures'

Whether sitting on a train or having dinner at a restaurant, many people find it hard to stop fiddling with their mobile phones – firing off a never-ending stream of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter posts.

If this online hyperactivity looks exhausting, it’s no surprise to discover that these high-frequency internet users find it much more difficult to pay attention to what’s going on around them than the rest of us – even when they are not consumed by the web.
New research finds that the most frequent mobile phone and internet users are the most likely to be distracted, for example by being prone to missing important appointments and daydreaming while having a conversation.
In the first study of its kind, an academic from Leicester’s De Montfort University has found that the more times a person uses the internet or their mobile phone, the more likely they are to experience “cognitive failures”.
These include a whole range of blunders, and a general lack of awareness of a person’s surroundings that stretches as far as people forgetting why they have just gone from one part of the house to the other says Dr Lee Hadlington, author of the research.
The study draws the same conclusions among users of mobile phones without internet access as with it – suggesting that mobile phone conversations and surfing the web are similarly associated with distraction.

But whether the most digitally active people are more distracted because their excessive online activity makes them jittery or hyperactive, or whether it is the other way around – that they are more drawn to these activities because they naturally have short “attentional control” – is unclear at this stage, he says.
Dr Hadlington does have a theory, however: that it is a mix of the two. In other words, those people already suffering from short attention spans are drawn to the distractions of modern technology, which makes it even harder for them to pay attention to their surroundings.
His research has been published in the journal Computers in Human Behaviour. He is now working on research to answer this question more comprehensively and to look for ways to solve the problem.
“This is a very underexamined area and a very important one. We are using technology on a daily basis but we don’t understand its effect on us,” Dr Hadlington said.
“We don’t know what’s actually happening to our cognition when we are using this technology and that’s the important thing. What we do know from this research is that there are some statistically significant numbers of people who say they use the internet or their phone a lot and who experience cognitive failures,” he added.

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http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/constantly-checking-your-mobile-phone-can-lead-to-cognitive-failures-10458210.html

 

 

Inflatable ‘space elevator’ invented by scientists

Astronauts would ascend 12 miles into the stratosphere before taking off under new plans to build a space lift

Thoth Technology's space tower would reach more than 12 miles into the sky 

It is an idea that every small child has had at some point. Instead of sending up rockets into space, why not simply build a huge lift.

Now a Canadian firm has been granted a patent for a ‘space elevator’ which will shoot cargo 12.4 miles into the stratosphere from where it can be launched more easily.

According to Thoth Technology, the lift would cut the cost of space flight by around one third because shuttles would not need to carry enormous amounts of fuel to get themselves off the ground.

“Astronauts would ascend to 12 miles by electrical elevator,” said Dr Brendan Quine, the inventor.

“From the top of the tower, space planes will launch in a single stage to orbit, returning to the top of the tower for refuelling and reflight.”

Shuttles would take off from a platform on top of the lift
Rockets are incredibly inefficient because they need huge amounts of power to get off the ground, using up most of their fuel fighting against inertia and atmospheric drag.
Engineers had always believed that space elevators would be unfeasible because no material exists which could support itself at such a height - although diamond nano-threads have been suggested.
However the new design by Thoth gets around the problem by only building the elevator to 12.4 miles so that it sits in the stratosphere rather than going all the way out into geostationary orbit, where satellites fly, which is around 22,000 miles up.
Dubbed the 'ThothX Tower' it would be inflatable, made with reinforced segments and topped with a runway from which satellite payloads could be launched. It would stay upright using a complex arrangements of fly-wheels to compensate for the tower bending.
The patent suggests that either pressurised cars would run in the core of the structure – like in traditional pneumatic tube message systems, or alternatively, they could climb up the outside of the shaft like a funicular railway. Each car could carry around 10 tonnes of cargo.
According to the designers, the tower could also be used for scientific research, communications, and generate energy from high up wind turbines.
And the elevator could open up new possibilities for space tourism, bringing down the cost of flights and making travel more convenient.
The tower would be inflatable with a runway on top
“Landing at 12 miles above sea level will make space flight more like taking a passenger jet,” said Thoth President and CEO, Caroline Roberts.
Even though it does not go all the way to space, the blueprints suggest it would be 20 times taller than the current highest manmade structure, the Burj Khalifa, in Dubai.
Space elevators were first suggested by Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in 1895. Tsiolkovsky proposed a freestanding tower reaching into geostationary orbit.
Arthur C Clarke also wrote about a space lift in his 1979 novel The Fountains of Paradise claiming it would bring down costs by transporting cargo directly up to satellites.
Structural engineer Peter Debney, from Arup, last year proposed a space lift based on how cathedrals control their centre of gravity by tapering at the top.
And in the US, the Washington based LiftPort Group is also planning is to use a 'ribbon' cable to transport material, robots and even humans to and from the surface of the Moon.
It will be attached to a space station in a Lagrange Point - where the Moon and Earth's gravity cancel each other out out - so a spacecraft or station can remain stationary.
The cable from the station, dubbed the PicoGravity Laboratory (PGL), will drop down to a location on the Moon via an elevator positioned at an area called Sinus Medii, roughly in the middle of the face that looks towards Earth.
A diagram from the patent application

 

 

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/11805987/Inflatable-space-elevator-invented-by-scientists.html