Popular science

Preface

What is ageing? We can define ageing as a process of accumulation of the damage which is just a side-effect of normal metabolism. While researchers still poorly understand how metabolic processes cause damage accumulation, and how accumulated damage causes pathology, the damage itself – the structural difference between old tissue and young tissue – is categorized and understood pretty well. By repairing damage and restoring the previous undamaged – young – state of an organism, we can really rejuvenate it! It sounds very promising, and so it is. And for some types of damage (for example, for senescent cells) it is already proved to work!

Today in our virtual studio, somewhere between cold, rainy Saint-Petersburg and warm, sunny Mountain View, we meet Aubrey de Grey, again! For those of you who are not familiar with him, here is a brief introduction.

When I used to start a conversation about neural networks over a bottle of beer, people were casting glances at me of what seemed to be fear; they grew sad, sometimes with their eyelid twitching. In rare cases, they were even eager to take refuge under the table. Why? These networks are simple and instinctive, actually. Yes, believe me, they are! Just let me prove this is true!

Suppose there are two things I’m aware of about the girl: she looks pretty to my taste or not, and I have lots to talk about with her or I haven’t. True and false will be one and zero respectively. We’ll take similar principle for appearance. The question is: “What girl I’ll fall in love with, and why?”

We also can think it straight and uncompromisingly: “If she looks pretty and there’s plenty to talk about, then I will fall in love. If neither is true, then I quit”.

But what if I like the lady but there’s nothing to talk about with her? Or vice versa?

Three years ago, ASCON, the parent company of C3D Labs, invited cosmonaut and Hero of the Soviet Union Aleksandr Laveykin to its Partnership Conference. As a guest speaker, he told the audience of Russian IT companies about his 174-day spaceflight and answered questions posed by conference attendees.

Up to now, the Q&A had not been translated into English. We post them for upcoming International Day of Human Space Flight (or Cosmonautics Day in Russia).

Aleksandr Laveykin flew to space in 1987 and worked as a flight engineer on board the Mir Space Station, orbiting the Earth for six months. He completed three spacewalks lasting a total of eight hours and 48 minutes.


Image: TASS

I’m going to have a guess and say that everyone whose friends or family have ever flown on a plane, have used Flightradar24 — a free and convenient service for tracking flights in real time.



In the first part the basic ideas of operation were described. Now let's go further and figure out, what data is exactly transmitting and receiving between the aircraft and a ground station. We'll also decode this data using Python.

Somewhere in an alternative Universe, based on MWI, I became a genius in physics. But in our Universe, I just read professional publications in physics, trying to keep myself up to date, meanwhile working as pizza delivery guy as DBA. Because of a slightly deeper knowledge of the subject it is almost impossible for me to watch the Discovery channel and other popular TV shows and the YouTube videos. I see nothing but oversimplifications, lies, and half-truths and can’t enjoy the shows.

I decided to compile a list of the most popular misconceptions. And the winner is...., or course, this one:

The Big Bang

Usually it is pictured like this:

A version how people transported megaliths in Stonehenge.



They started their work in summer.

They prepared road for transportation. They needed a clean and glade road without stones and other irregularities. (No.4 on picture)
Perhaps they cut the topsoil and covered the road with clay. (No.3 on the picture)
On each side they made curbs ( 5-10 cm). (No.2 on the picture)
They used clay because they wanted to hold water inside the road.
In autumn rains filled road with water. It looked like a big puddle. (No.5 on the picture)

In winter road froze. Then they got a smooth ice skating rink slightly wider than a megalith.

Megaliths (No.11) were transported in winter.

Mechanism and vehicles for transportation were prepared in summer.

Mechanism consisted of three parts.

Hi all!

Every person is using barcodes nowadays, mostly without noticing this. When we are buying the groceries in the store, their identifiers are getting from barcodes. Its also the same with goods in the warehouses, postal parcels and so on. But not so many people actually know, how it works.

What is 'inside' the barcode, and what is encoded on this image?



Lets figure it out, and also lets write our own bar decoder.

Source: eeNews Europe

I'm glad that Habr got brand new English version. And my first post in English is about new MIT project. Researchers designed an ultra-low capacitance and ultra-low resistance Schottky diode capable of switching at GHz frequencies. This diode is able rectify and convert random WiFi signals into DC electricity.

MoS₂ «rectenna» (this is how scientists called their invention) could become the main element of roll-to-roll process to cover a huge areas. To be fair antennas capable transform radio signals in to electricity is not a new thing. The main achievement of MIT engineers is creation of soft rectenna made from special alloy.