# s-astro: Dragonfly 44, a galaxy with a massive dark matter inside

<< an  international  team  of  astronomers  has  found  a  massive  galaxy  that  consists almost  entirely  of  dark  matter. The  galaxy,  Dragonfly  44,  is  located  in  the  nearby  Coma  constellation  and  had  been  overlooked  until  last  year  because  of  its unusual  composition:  It  is  a  diffuse  “blob”  about  the  size  of  the  Milky  Way,  but  with  far  fewer  stars >>

<< Dragonfly  44’s  mass  is  estimated  to  be  1  trillion  times  the  mass  of  the  Sun,  or  2  tredecillion  kilograms  (a  2  followed  by  42 zeros),  which  is  similar  to  the  mass  of  the  Milky  Way.  However,  only  one-hundredth  of  1%  of  that  is  in  the  form  of  stars  and “normal”  matter.  The  other  99.99%  is  in  the  form  of  dark  matter  —  a  hypothesized  material  that  remains  unseen  but  may make  up  more  than  90%  of  the  universe >>

Jim  Shelton. Scientists  discover  a  ‘dark’  Milky  Way. August  25,  2016

http://news.yale.edu/2016/08/25/scientists-discover-dark-milky-way

Pieter  van  Dokkum ,  Roberto  Abraham, et al. A high stellar velocity dispersion and ~100 globular clusters for the ultra- diffuse  galaxy dragonfly 44. ApJ  828  L6 Published 2016 August 25.

http://dx.doi.org/10.3847/2041-8205/828/1/L6

# s-psych: Who broke Grandma's favorite vase?

<< "Who  broke  Grandma's  favorite  vase?"  As  you  listen  to  a  chorus  of  "I  don't  know"  and  "Not  me,"  how  will you  determine  the culprit? Conventional  wisdom  says,  divide  and  conquer,  but  what  does  scientific research  show  us  about  questioning  a  group  of  people  at  one  time?  Unfortunately,  very  little. >>

Michelle  Ponto. How easy  is  it  to  spot  a  lie? Researchers  look  at  the  art  of  deception  during  group  interviews. 25 Aug 2016.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-08/f-hei082516.php

<< Investigators  often  have  multiple  suspects  to  interview  in  order  to  determine  whether  they  are  guilty  or innocent  of  a  crime.  Nevertheless,  co-offending  has  been  significantly  neglected  within  the  deception detection  literature.  The  current  review  is  the  first  of  its  kind  to  discuss  co-offending  and  the  importance  of examining  the  detection  of  deception  within  groups >>

Zarah Vernham, Par-Anders Granhag, Erik Mac Giolla. Detecting  Deception  within  Small  Groups:  A Literature  Review. Front.  Psychol. 30  June  2016  DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01012

http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01012

# s-phys: the beryllium anomaly, hypothesis of a fifth force

<< Earlier this year, an experiment in Hungary reported very unusual behavior in the decays of beryllium-8 nuclei. The experimental collaboration suggested that their results may come from the effects of a new force of nature. If confirmed, this would have far-reaching consequences on fundamental physics including grand unification, dark matter and the experimental strategy for pushing the frontier of human knowledge. >>

Nuclear  puzzle  may  be  clue  to  fifth  force. August 18, 2016.

http://scienmag.com/nuclear-puzzle-may-be-clue-to-fifth-force/

Jonathan  L.  Feng,  Bartosz  Fornal, et al. Particle  Physics  Models  for  the  17 MeV  Anomaly  in  Beryllium  Nuclear Decays. arXiv:1608.03591v1  [hep-ph]. Submitted  on  11  Aug  2016.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1608.03591

Jonathan  L.  Feng,  Bartosz  Fornal, et al. Protophobic  Fifth  Force Interpretation  of  the  Observed Anomaly  in  ^8Be  Nuclear  Transitions. arXiv:1604.07411v2  [hep-ph]. Submitted  on  25  Apr  2016.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1604.07411

FonT: a differenza del tecnologo e della gran parte delle altre professioni (a parte l'atto artistico spontaneo, improvvisato), per chi si occupa di ricerca scientifica in qualsiasi ambito disciplinare la comparsa (e la dimostrazione sperimentale) di una "anomalia" e' da considerare sempre e in ogni caso evento ricco di informazione, percio' evento di primaria importanza, da trattare possibilmente senza pregiudizi;  in questo aspetto (fondamentale) l'umano nomade (il boscimane ad es.) e lo "scientist" sono nei fatti piu' vicini di quanto si creda ... una sorta di "cerchio" che si chiude ...

# e-sec: a priori cracked; 'verifiable computing' vs chip manufacturing

<< Medical devices, public infrastructure and voting machines, as well as financial, military and government electronics could all be compromised long before their first use if backdoors were added to their chips during the manufacturing process.  The issue could affect CPUs, GPUs and motherboards, but also storage and memory components. These days we're seeing more companies employ cryptographic signing for their software to ensure that the code delivered to the users is identical what was written by the vendors (although not all companies are taking this to heart yet). A similar validation process is needed for hardware to ensure its integrity. >>

Lucian Armasu. University Researchers Invent Solution To Protect Chips Against Manufacturing Sabotage. August 26, 2016  4:00 PM

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/chip-protection-solution-manufacturing-sabotage,32569.html

Researchers design a chip that checks for  sabotage. Integrated Circuits Can Monitor Their Own Computations and Flag Defects. August 23, 2016

http://engineering.nyu.edu/press-releases/2016/08/23/cybersecurity-researchers-design-chip-checks-sabotage

# s-phys: spontaneous oddities observed in a home-made black hole in sound

AA << observe spontaneous Hawking radiation, stimulated by quantum vacuum fluctuations, emanating from an analogue black hole in an atomic Bose–Einstein condensate. >>

Jeff Steinhauer. Observation of quantum Hawking radiation and its entanglement in an analogue black hole. Nature Physics (2016) doi:10.1038/nphys3863 Published online 15 Aug 2016

http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nphys3863.html

Davide Castelvecchi. Artificial black hole creates its own version of Hawking radiation. Result could be closest thing yet to an observation of the bizarre phenomenon. 15 Aug 2016.

http://www.nature.com/news/artificial-black-hole-creates-its-own-version-of-hawking-radiation-1.20430

Ron  Cowen. One-man  band:  the  solo  physicist  who  models  black holes  in  sound. Working  alone,  Jeff  Steinhauer  has  created  a  sonic  analogue  of  Hawking  radiation.  15  Aug 2016.

http://www.nature.com/news/one-man-band-the-solo-physicist-who-models-black-holes-in-sound-1.20437

# s-psych: bias in moral judgment

AA << results suggest that a victim's plight is perceived as less severe when others share it, and this bias is common to both third-party judges and victims. >>

Konis D, Haran U, et al. A Sorrow Shared Is a Sorrow Halved: Moral Judgments of Harm to Single versus Multiple Victims. Front Psychol. 2016 Aug 2;7:1142. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01142. eCollection 2016.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27531988

# s-brain: 70-years after; Dr. Albert revisited

<< Treating an addiction to a mind-altering substance with another mind-altering substance might seem counterintuitive, but more and more, researchers are finding ways that psychedelic drugs like psilocybin mushrooms and party drugs like ketamine could actually help people get over alcohol and drug addictions. >>

Kevin Loria. Science Doctors are talking about using psychedelic drugs to treat alcoholics. 21 Aug 2016.

http://www.businessinsider.com/doctors-using-ketamine-lsd-and-mushrooms-to-treat-mental-illness-2016-8

Zoe  Cormier. Magic-mushroom  drug  lifts  depression  in  first  human trial. Researchers'  long  fight  to  test  psilocybin's  safety  finally  yields  fruit.  Nature.  17  May  2016. doi:10.1038/nature.2016.19919.

http://www.nature.com/news/magic-mushroom-drug-lifts-depression-in-first-human-trial-1.19919

Dr. Albert (Albert Hofmann) in: Lysergic acid diethylamide. 21 Aug 2016.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysergic_acid_diethylamide