Agricultural Researchers Propose Agri-CERN, Europe-Wide Community Of Shared Research And Equipment

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ECOFE (European Consortium for Open Field Experimentation), a network of agricultural resources at various locations around Europe, has been proposed by a group of scientists in order to do for agricultural science what CERN has done for nuclear research.

The organization would be a community of research stations across Europe — from an outpost in Sicily to a field in Scotland. Among the benefits looked forward to by the researchers behind the project are the ability to study a wide range of soil properties, atmospheric conditions, and temperatures, and, prospectively, the ability to finance more expensive equipment, which would be shared.

For example, open-field installations that allow researchers to study the effects of artificially elevated levels of carbon dioxide, would be a shared cost and a shared tool.

“Present field research facilities are aimed at making regional agriculture prosperous,” said co-author Hartmut Stützel of Leibniz Universität Hannover in Germany. “To us, it is obvious that the ‘challenges’ of the 21st century–productivity increase, climate change, and environmental sustainability–will require more advanced research infrastructures covering a wider range of environments.”

The benefits of community research are also associated with potential downsides: researchers would have to sacrifice some of their scientific autonomy in order to focus on targeted research goals.

“It will be a rather new paradigm for many traditional scientists,” said Stützel but I think the communities are ready to accept this challenge and understand that research in the 21st century requires these types of infrastructures. We must now try to make political decision makers aware that a speedy implementation of a network for open field experimentation is fundamental for future agricultural research.

The report is titled “The Future of Field Trials in Europe: Establishing a Network Beyond Boundaries.” It was completed by Drs. Stutzel, Nicolas Bruggermann, and Dirk Inze, and was published in the journal Cell.

By Andy Stern

Chimpanzees Require “Trust” Of Friends

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Chimpanzees played the trust game to find out the basis of individual preference for other chimps

Trust is the foundation of close relationships in the world of chimpanzees, according to anthropologists at Max Planck Institute.

“Humans largely trust only their friends with crucial resources or important secrets,” said Dr. Jan Engelmann of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany. “In our study, we investigated whether chimpanzees show a comparable pattern and extend trust selectively toward those individuals they are closely bonded with. Our findings suggest that they do indeed, and thus that current characteristics of human friendships have a long evolutionary history and extend to primate social bonds.”

Previous studies of chimpanzee friendships had shown that the animals were attracted to sociable partners for friendships, and that they extended their favors to those they preferred. The Max Plank researchers wanted to know if the basis for this preference was “trust.”

Research situation of chimps
Research situation of chimps

In order to find out, the researchers spent five months at Sweetwaters Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Kenya. They set up an arena where the Sweetwaters chimps could play “the trust game” — a game in which two separated chimpanzees get to decide if their partner gets a delicious treat or a less savory one. The partner in turn has the opportunity to share some of their treat back with the one who pulled the rope that opened the door to the treat.

The best case scenario is considered to be that the chimp with the rope will provide the other with the tasty treat, and the other will share some with the first chimp.

Before the researchers put the chimps in the experimental setting, the researchers observed the chimpanzee group to decide for each chimp which other animal was their favorite and least favorite. These two would be paired up against the first chimp in the game.

Each chimp played 12 rounds of the game with each their favorite and least favorite group member.

The result was that chimps were ” significantly more likely to voluntarily place resources at the disposal of a partner, and thus to choose a risky but potentially high-payoff option, when they interacted with a friend as compared to a non-friend.”

The researchers interpreted this finding to mean that chimpanzees show much greater trust when it comes to friends than non-friends.

“Human friendships do not represent an anomaly in the animal kingdom,” Engelmann said. “Other animals, such as chimpanzees, form close and long-term emotional bonds with select individuals. These animal friendships show important parallels with close relationships in humans. One shared characteristic is the tendency to selectively trust friends in costly situations.”

The report, “Chimpanzees Trust Their Friends,” was completed by Drs. Jan Maxim Engelmann and Esther Herrmann and was published in the journal Current Biology. View the research paper at this link.

By Andy Stern

Driving In A SNAP!

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Designer Nick Kaloterakis has worked on a wide range of future design concepts, incluing vehicles, and this is his SNAP! design. It is a personal wheel vehicle that can attach to other similar vehicles to form collective vehicles.

Kaloterakis works in 3D renderings to develop his concepts. By trade he is a digital artist at 3D/VFX in Syndey, Australia, in addition to owning his own design studio called “kollected.”

By Andy Stern

Kollected

snap snap

 

 

Concept Watch

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This is the ASIG nohero/nosky Concentric D. wrist watch, a concept for CD2 that was designed by Row Zero aka Simon Williamson, an associate professor at Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston, Massachusetts, which redesigns not just the surface but also the case of the watch.

Instead of a motor of gears rotating the arms of the watch from its center, the ASIG Concentric D. powers itself from the border of the watch face, leaving the face empty and transparent.

The arms radiate inward rather than outward, and must run along three tracks on the inside of the watch face border.

The ASIG Concentric D. concept also maintains the traditional feature of the watch winder, whether the winder is used to tension springs within the border of the face or is just for show is not known.

The watch hands are decorated with rows of tiny lights for night wear.

The ASIG Concentric D. has garnered a significant amount of attention based on its design alone. The unique concept watch is not in production, and Future Now does not know of any similar watches using the layout conceived by Williamson.

By Andy Stern

Behance
Row Zero

asig g watch

 

 

Axl Rose Confirms Guns N’ Roses At Coachella

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Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose confirmed rumors Monday that the original Guns N’ Roses would reunite and play the Coachella festival in 2016. The hard rock singer confirmed the reunion with his former bandmates on Twitter, less than one week after Tweeting opaquely that “The only thing I know ‘confirmed’ is my LOVE of Taco Bell!”

“Ok,ok…,” tweeted Rose, “It’s ‘confirmed!’ Guns N’ Roses is Headlining Coachella 2016!! See Everyone There!!”

Guns and Roses

The tweet followed an announcement by The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival that the lineup for the festival would include Guns N’ Roses, LCD Soundsystem, Calvin Harris, Ellie Goulding, Ice Cube, Disclosure, Sia, and dozens of other bands.

Canada From Space

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From the International Space Station’s 400 km perch, astronauts like New Jerseyite Scott Kelly have been taking impressive photos of the world over the past almost two decades of the ISS’s use.

Kelly, the current Commander of the Year Long Mission aboard the ISS, has been tweeting his photos to his followers for the duration.

Here are some of the best shots from the space above the Great White North, Canada:

Want to try to guess them? The photographs show:

1. North Vancouver Island and Rocky Mountains
2. Vancouver from above
3. Aurora over Calgary
4. Aurora over Saskatchewan
5. Great Lakes near Salte Ste. Marie
6. North of Georgian Bay, Ontario
7. Montreal from above
8. Quebec City from above

All images NASA

Islamic Extremists Killed 27,000 People In 52 Countries In 2015

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In the previous year, Islamic violence took the lives of over 27,000 people and critically injured another 26,000, according to an extremism watch organization that tracks Islamic attacks. 2015’s attacks took place in 52 countries worldwide, and included 475 suicide attacks.

The Religion of Peace, an organization that collects information about attacks motivated by Islamic ideas and tallies various statistics, published their yearly figures Friday on their website.

The December figures — 225 deaths and 273 critically injured in 47 separate attacks, brought the totals for the 2015 year to 27,435 deaths and 26,144 critically injured in 2,849 separate attacks in 52 countries.

The numbers provided by TROP are actually lower than what the total deaths would be, the organization’s editor Glen Roberts told The Speaker, because the organization relies on news reports for their tallies. Not all deaths are reported in the news, and deaths that occur after news has been published are usually not included.

2015 Islamic Violence numbers

The numbers have remained fairly consistent since TROP’s first entries, which date back to the September 11 attacks on the Twin Towers in 2001.

Read more: Islamic terrorists have committed 25,000 separate violent acts worldwide

“It looks like there have been only 12 days since the beginning of 2005 without at least one Islamic attack,” Roberts noted.

There are an average of 5 separate attacks every day that result in at least one death, motivated by Islamic ideas, according to TROP. The numbers tallied do not include deaths like honor killings, although the group does monitor these incidents as well.

Sources: TROP

Birds 1 – Drones 0

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Over the past year, we have seen many drone-cam videos of birds of prey attacking UAVs, sometimes knocking them down. This week, a falcon in Dubai took a drone down as prey, reported The National.

The drone was flying above Jumeirah park when it was taken down by the raptor, whizzed to the ground and crashed. The bird followed it down, and was seen by park-goers guarding its prey.

A man who was concerned about what had happened went to investigate the garden into which it had crashed. The falcon was perched nearby, and after the two exchanged stares, the falcon flew over to perch on the drone.

The man, one Lukas Franciszek, posted the photo he took to social media.

The falcon flew away, and the owner is not yet known, although the bird was tagged.

It is suspected that the falcon may have associated the drone with food. Drones are used to train falcons: they lure birds in the air with dangling bundles of meat and feathers. After a bird tears this bundle off, it is typically rewarded as part of its training.

By Mike Weins

Bangkok Police’s New Year’s Gift: Traffic Fines Reduced To 100 Baht

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Bangkok Metropolitan Police have announced a “New Years Gift” to the city: traffic tickets will be reduced to just 100 baht starting today.

The gift has a serious side: the metro police are dealing with a massive backlog of unpaid traffic tickets. Because the repercussions associated with not paying these tickets are usually insignificant, many people simply leave them unpaid.

The gift doesn’t extend to all offenders, however. Traffic crimes that affect other people are not included in the deal. These crimes include DUIs, illegal parking, and driving on sidewalks.

However, crimes such as not wearing a helmet on a motorbike or not wearing a seatbelt in a car are eligible, so long as the fine was originally for less than 1,000 baht.

The traffic fine promotion will end Jan. 15, 2016, after which time all traffic fines will return to their regular rates.

By Andy Stern

Polish Mass Political Assassination Plotter Sentenced

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Brunon Kwiexien
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For plotting to blow up an in-session Parliament, Polish former university professor Brunon Kwiexien has been sentenced to 13 years prison.

On Monday a Polish court handed down the sentence to the former Krakow University of Agriculture chemistry professor.

Kwiecien, 48, an unaffiliated nationalist, cited as motives for the crime, planned in 2012, a belief that his country was headed in the wrong direction and the issue of what he referred to as foreigners holding government positions.

Kwiecien did not deny his plans when arrested.

When the police were tipped off, they found four tonnes of explosives in a car which Kwiecien planned to use to kill the president, prime minister and others during a hearing on the budget.

By Andy Stern

How To Stop Facebook Posts From Showing Up On Your Wall

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Sometimes on Facebook people may find themselves getting posts on their wall they do not want. Why does this happen? Facebook’s algorithm (a computer formula that “thinks”) has noticed the posts you have engaged with (liked, commented, etc.) and they have thought it in your interest to show you more posts from the same source, or similar posts. Often you get to see lots of new, interesting things tailored to your interests, which can be seen as a benefit. Sometimes, however, you wind up with something you don’t want on your wall.

What to understand: the person who posted that post that has showed up on your wall did not put it on your wall or ask for it to be put on your wall. They had nothing to do with the post showing up on your wall. They were going about their regular business, posting to their wall, and the algorithm thought it would be something you would like, so Facebook showed it to you.

How to stop posts from showing up on your wall:

Go to your wall, and find a post you don’t want to see more of. Click the down-arrow in the top-right corner, and select “Hide post.” Facebook will then erase that post from your wall. Then click “See less from [name here].” Facebook will show you less posts from them from then on. You can also “unfollow” the person or “fanpage” using the same dropdown menu.

hide facebook post (1)
Click “Hide post”
hide facebook post (2)
Click “See less”

NOTE: After making this tutorial, we went back and clicked “undo” on the example Now This post, because we still want Now This posts on our wall.

NOTE: Do not click “Report post” — unless the post itself is doing something wrong (if it’s hateful or offensive). Remember, the person who made that post did nothing to for their post to be shown on your wall. They were just going along with their business, posting it to their wall. Clicking “report” is for actually offensive content, and if you could be guilty of abusing Facebook tools if you report a post that Facebook investigates and sees is a perfectly OK post.

Another thing you can do, if you’re seeing posts from a Facebook “fanpage” you don’t like, is you can go to that page and “unlike” it. Click “Liked” and click “Unlike this page.”

unlike page (1)
Click “Liked”
unlike page (2)
Click “Unlike this page”

NOTE: No matter what, you will still see some posts on your wall you do not ask for. This is because Facebook has advertisements. Without at least some advertisements, there would be no Facebook, because Facebooks costs are high. (Once, Facebook talked about an idea of charging users $2 per month for no-ads use, but people were not happy with the idea.)