# s-gst: surface waves as a Turing machine

<< A droplet bouncing and wandering across a liquid surface can produce waves that store the history of its chaotic motion >>

Philip  Ball. Focus:  Surface  Waves  Store  Bouncing Droplet’s  History. Physics  9,  101. August  26,  2016.

http://physics.aps.org/articles/v9/101

S. Perrard, E. Fort, Y. Couder. Wave-Based Turing Machine: Time Reversal and Information Erasing. Phys. Rev. Lett. 117, 094502 – DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.117.094502 Published 26 August 2016

http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.117.094502

# s-tech: a BZ skin for squishy bots

<< The potential to develop “materials that compute” has taken another leap (..) researchers for the first time have demonstrated that the material can be designed to recognize simple patterns. >>

<< This responsive, hybrid material, powered by its own chemical reactions, could one day be integrated into clothing and used to monitor the human body, or developed as a skin for “squishy” robots >>

<< The computations were modeled utilizing Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) gels, a substance that oscillates in the absence of external stimuli, with an overlaying piezoelectric cantilever. >>

<< This (..) is an example of this groundbreaking shift away from traditional silicon CMOS-based digital computing to a non-von Neumann machine in a polymer substrate, with remarkable low power consumption. >>

Research at Pitt into “materials that compute” advances as engineers demonstrate system performs pattern recognition. Sept 2, 2016.

https://engineering.pitt.edu/News/2016/Anna-Balazs-Materials-That-Compute-Pattern-Recognition/

Yan  Fang , Victor  V.  Yashin ,  et al. Pattern  recognition  with  “materials  that  compute”. Science  Advances   02  Sep 2016: Vol.  2,  no.  9,  e1601114 DOI:  10.1126/sciadv.1601114

http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1601114

also:

1558-orologio chimico

http://inkpi.blogspot.it/2005/04/1558-orologio-chimico.html

# s-acad: scientists can contribute

<< Scientists can contribute to ensuring that the loss of privacy through technology does not result in loss of personal freedom. >>

Christoph Bock. Preserve personal freedom in networked societies. Broad anti-discrimination laws and practices could compensate for failing data protection and technology-linked loss of privacy. 31 August 2016. Nature 537, 9 (01 Sept 2016) doi:10.1038/537009a

http://www.nature.com/news/preserve-personal-freedom-in-networked-societies-1.20510

Also: self awareness, creativity and civil rights

http://flashontrack.blogspot.it/2016/05/s-brain-behav-n-socsci-abc-self.html

# s-evol: rapid self-assembly, in shades of orange and green ...

<< Scientists  have  found  what  they  think  is  the  oldest  fossil  on  Earth,  a  remnant  of  life  from  3.7 billion  years  ago  when  Earth's  skies  were  orange  and  its  oceans  green. >>

<< The  discovery  shows  life  may  have  formed  quicker  and  easier  than  once  thought,  about  half  a billion  years  after  Earth  formed.  And  that  may  also  give  hope  for  life  forming  elsewhere,  such as  Mars >>

Seth  Borenstein. Scientists  find  3.7  billion-year-old  fossil,  oldest  yet.  August  31,  2016.

http://m.phys.org/news/2016-08-scientists-billion-year-old-fossil-oldest.html

AA << report  evidence  for  ancient  life  from  a  newly  exposed  outcrop  of  3,700-Myr-old  metacarbonate  rocks  in  the ISB (Isua  supracrustal  belt, southwest  Greenland)  that  contain  1–4-cm-high  stromatolites— macroscopically  layered  structures  produced  by  microbial communities >>

Allen P. Nutman, Vickie C. Bennett, et al.  Rapid  emergence  of  life  shown  by  discovery  of 3,700-million-year-old  microbial  structures. Nature   (2016)   doi:10.1038/nature19355. Published  online  31  August  2016.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature19355.html

# e-tech: human- machine dialog: a step towards

<< Machines are taking over more and more tasks. Ideally, they should also be capable to support the human in case of poor performance. To intervene appropriately, the machine should understand what is going on with the human >>

<< Fraunhofer scientists have developed a diagnostic tool that recognizes user states in real time and communicates them to the machine.>>

<< A key aspect  (..) is that not only the user understands the machine, but that the machine also understands the state of the human. >>

In the model, AA << differentiates between six dimensions of user state that impact human performance: workload, motivation, situation awareness, attention, fatigue and the emotional state. >>

In addition, AA << combines these with external factors such as task, environmental factors, current level of automation and time of day, as well as individual factors—such as the user's experience. >>

Hey human, how are you doing?  Press Release. Man-machine interaction: comprehensive assessment of user states. Research News / 1.8.2016

https://www.fraunhofer.de/en/press/research-news/2016/august/hey-human-how-are-you-doing.htme

FonT: idealmente, si potrebbero  miniaturizzare i sensori e, attraverso  compressione algoritmica, adattare il software per far girare il sistema all'interno di un OS per smartwatch /  smartphone, giusto per comodita' d'uso ...

# 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