Show Notes: linuxunplugged.com/422

The post The Fun Distro | LINUX Unplugged 422 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Only a few hours into our return trip from SCALE 14x we heard the warning to get off the road, and take shelter. Troubles with tornadoes, drones with friends, and the the long haul home.

Note: Footage is from January 2016.

The post Driving into a Tornado | Rover Log 17 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

The DOJ’s investigations into journalists has expanded, who is the target, and how far is the US government willing to go? We dig into the details.

Ripped apart from a massive tornado Moore Oklahoma, begins their recovery. The media on the other hand has gone into full exploitation mode, we’ll rip them up.

Then Russia outs another CIA operative, Tim Cook Testified in the senate, the flawed Media Shield Law, a BIG drone update, and much much more.

On this week’s Unfilter.

Direct Download:

HD Video | Mobile Video | MP3 Audio | OGG Audio | Torrent | YouTube

RSS Feeds:

HD Feed | Mobile Feed | MP3 Feed | OGG Feed | HD Torrent | Mobile Torrent | iTunes

Become an Unfilter Supporter:

Donate Bitcoins

— Show Notes —

Oklahoma Twister

• Dad drives through storm to get son as tornado hits – YouTube

Jeff Lechus talks about driving to pick up his son from school as a tornado hit the area.

• Majority thinks global warming, clean energy should be priorities – latimes.com

70% of American adults say global warming should be a priority for the nation’s leaders, while 87% say leaders should make it a priority to develop sources of clean energy. Those support levels have dropped by 7% and 5% respectively since fall.

Tim Cook Testifies to Senate Committee

• Apple’s Tim Cook: U.S. Tax Code Handicaps Companies – YouTube

Tim Cook, chief executive officer of Apple Inc., said the iPhone maker doesn’t use “gimmicks” to avoid taxes. Cook, testifying before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in Washington, said the current U.S. tax code “handicaps” American companies. (This is an excerpt from the hearing. Source: Bloomberg)

• Apple CEO makes no apology for company’s tax strategy – Yahoo! Finance

In Ireland, where low corporate taxes have been an economic development tool for many years, the government said it had not made a special tax deal with Apple. If Apple’s tax rate was too low, it was the fault of other countries, deputy prime minister Eamon Gilmore told national broadcaster RTE on Tuesday.

– Thanks for Supporting Unfilter –

This Week’s New Supporters:

• Jason P
• Florian G

• Florian Still Loves Us

Since unfilter is now my favourite JB show I wanted to share the reason why I subscribed just in case it gets you guys a few more subscriptions from this side of the Atlantic.

• Thanks to our 80 Unfilter supporters!

• Supporter perk: Downloadable Pre and Post show. Extra clips, music, hijinks, and off the cuff comments. The ultimate Unfiltered experience.

IRS Targets “Tea Party” Groups

• IRS official refuses to answer questions at scandal hearing

“I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations, and I have not provided false information to this or any congressional committee,” she said. “Because I am asserting my right not to testify, I know that some people will assume that I have done something wrong. I have not.”

DOJ Targeted Fox News as Well as AP

• Fox News Reporter James Rosen Had DoJ Target – Business Insider

The Department of Justice heavily tracked Fox News reporter James Rosen during a 2009 leak probe, according to a report from Ann E. Marimow in the Washington Post.

Media Shield Law has Flaws

• White House asks Schumer to introduce press shield law – POLITICO.com

The White House has asked Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to reintroduce a press shield law, White House officials said Wednesday.

The move comes after questions were raised about the seizure of Associated Press phone records by the Justice Department as part of a national security leak investigation.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said Wednesday that Obama welcomes the reintroduction of the shield bill.

• Obama’s media shield law makes prosecuting journalists even easier

“As a Senator, Obama was a vocal supporter of a robust shield
law; he co-sponsored a bill in 2007 and campaigned on the issue in
2008,” Timm wrote. “But when the Senate moved to pass the
bill as soon as Obama came into office, his administration abruptly
changed course and opposed the bill, unless the Senate carved out
an exception for all national security reporters.”

For the Freedom of the Press Foundation, Timm wrote this week
that the latest version of the shield law wouldn’t do much more.
Under the Sept. 2009 request sent from the White House, the shield
law once supported by Pres. Obama would include an exception where
journalists could be subpoenaed if it means national security is at
risk.

“Now, it’s important to remember: virtually the only time the
government subpoenas reporters, it involves leak investigations
into stories by national security reporters. So it’s hard to see
how this bill will significantly help improve press freedom,”
wrote Timm. “Worse, there’s a strong argument that passing the
bill as it ended in 2010 will weaken rights reporters already have
and make it easier for the government to get sources from
reporters.”

“The difference is that instead of DOJ unilaterally making
that determination,” the Justice Department would "have to
convince a judge that this was the case," University of
Minnesota Law Professor Jane Kirtley explained to the Post.

Friend of the Boston Bomber Older Brother Killed by FBI

• Man killed by FBI agent knew Tsarnaevs, official says – CNN.com

Ibragim Todashev, the man shot dead last night by an FBI agent in Orlando, Florida, had been acquainted with deceased Boston Marathon attacker Tamerlan Tsarnaev at a mixed martial arts center near Boston, according to a source briefed on the ongoing marathon bombing investigation. Todashev had Tsarnaev’s phone number in his cell phone, the source said.

• Man with ties to Boston bombing suspect admits role in 2011 murders; shot during FBI questioning – U.S. News

Dead Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev and another man — who was killed by the FBI on Wednesday — murdered three people in Massachusetts after a drug deal went wrong in 2011, law enforcement sources tell NBC News.

SPIED HARD

• Russian Official Names CIA Station Chief In Moscow

Breaching protocol, a Russian official let a name slip during an interview with Interfax, the state news agency.

The FSB agent told the news agency that last year, another embassy secretary was expelled from Russia for recruiting attempts. That case wasn’t made public, the agent said, but the U.S. was warned.
“We hoped our American colleagues would hear us, given that we also presented to them precise information about CIA officers making recruitment attempts in Moscow and who exactly was doing that,” the FSB agent said.
*

Drone Update

• Meet Cyro, The US Navy’s 170 Pound Underwater Jellyfish Drone – Girls Just Wanna Have Guns

Meet Cyro, the Virginia Tech College of Engineering underwater life-like jellyfish drone in development for US Navy surveillance.

• Pentagon absorbs portion of CIA’s drone program – YouTube

The Obama administration is handing control of some of its counterterrorism operations that previously fell into the hands of the CIA over to the Pentagon. The controversial drone program used by the CIA to target suspected terrorists has attracted a fair share of criticism as of late, and moving some of its operations over to the Department of Defense will allow Congress to have some oversight. Drone strikes in Yemen will fall into the hands of the Armed Forces while those that occur in Pakistan will continue to be controlled by the CIA.

• U.S. Acknowledges Killing 4 Americans in Drone Strikes – NYTimes.com

WASHINGTON — One day before President Obama is due to deliver a major speech on national security, his administration on Wednesday formally acknowledged that the United States had killed four American citizens in drone strikes in Yemen and Pakistan.

The letter also said that the United States had killed three other Americans: Samir Khan, who was killed in the same strike; Mr. Awlaki’s son Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, who was also killed in Yemen; and Jude Mohammed, who was killed in a strike in Pakistan.

“These individuals were not specifically targeted by the United States,” Mr. Holder wrote.

Feedback:

• Our Thoughts on Google Glass?

If you’re a Supporter check your inbox!

Call us: 1.425.312.1756

Follow the Us:

• Unfilter on Reddit
• Chris on Twitter
• Chase’s Geek and Gaming Network
• Chase on Twitter

The post Tap That Journalist | Unfilter 51 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

We take a look at new rehabilitation for spinal cord injuries, nanotech medical diagnosis, Guinness bubbles, tomato’s, a quiet room, tornado map, spacecraft updates and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

Direct Download:

MP3 Download | Ogg Download | HD Video | Mobile Video | YouTube

RSS Feeds:

MP3 Feed | Ogg Feed | iTunes Feed | HD Feed | Mobile Feed

Support the Show:

[asa]B001TOQ8X4[/asa]
[asa]B006X1JLZU[/asa]
   

Spinal Cord injury treatment

_{YouTube channel Sergeytule | Credit: Courtesy of EPFL}

• The low down
• Most spinal injuries in people do not sever the spinal cord completely
• Spinal injuries cause paralysis because they sever or crush nerve fibers that connect the brain to neurons in the spinal cord that move muscles throughout the body
• These fibers, or axons, are the long extensions that convey signals from one end of a neuron to another, and unfortunately, they don’t regrow in adults
• Restoring axons’ ability to regrow using growth factors, stem cells, or other therapies has been a longstanding and elusive goal for researchers.
• Significance
• To approximate a spinal injury in rats, researchers made two surgical cuts in the spinal cord, severing all of the direct connections from the brain, but leaving some tissue intact in between the cuts (it wouldn’t work for a completely severed cord)
• The rats then began a rehab regime intended to bypass the fractured freeway, as it were, by pushing more traffic onto neural back roads and building more of them
• The physical therapy began about a week after the rats were injured, and lasted about 30 minutes a day
• During each session, the researchers injected the animals with a cocktail of drugs to improve the function of rats’ neural circuits in the part of the spinal cord involved in leg movements
• They then stimulated this area with electrodes to prime the spinal cord for action
• A rat was then fitted into a harness attached to a robotic device that supported its weight and allowed it to walk forward on its hind legs to the extent that it was able
• At first, the rats could not move their legs at all, after 2 or 3 weeks, the rodents began taking steps toward a piece of food after a gentle nudge from the robot
• By 5 or 6 weeks, they were able to initiate movement on their own and walk to get the food
• After a few additional weeks of intensified rehab, they were able to walk up rat-sized stairs and climb over a small barrier placed in their path
• Rats suspended over a moving treadmill that elicited reflex-like stepping movement
• The amount of recovery depending on making intentional movements, not just any movement
• Additional experiments in the paper make a compelling case that the rats’ recovery is due to new neural connections forming to create a detour around the injury
• This study suggests that all three components of the rehab strategy are needed; the drugs, the electrical stimulation, and the robot-assisted physical therapy
• Of Note
• A case study published last year reported some recovery of voluntary movements in a man paralyzed in a vehicle accident, after he underwent a combination of electrical stimulation and physical therapy
• Two more patients are undergoing similar rehab now, and his group hopes to add drug therapy to enhance nerve repair in the future
• For the rats they could only make voluntary movements while the electrical stimulation was turned on, and the same was mostly true of the human patient in case study
• YouTube
• Robotic Rehab Helps Paralyzed Rats Walk Again | Sergeytule
• Further Reading / In the News
• Robotic Rehab Helps Paralyzed Rats Walk Again | news.sciencemag.org

— NEWS BYTE —

Nanotechnology meets medical diagnosis

_{Credit: Stephen Chou/Analytical Chemistry}

• The low down
• A common biological test called immunoassay, mimics the action of the immune system to detect the presence of biomarkers
• When biomarkers are present they produce a fluorescent glow (light) that can be measured in a laboratory
• The greater the glow, the more of the biomarker is present; however, if the amount of biomarker is too small, the fluorescent light is too faint to be detected
• Princeton researchers have tackled this limitation by using nanotechnology to greatly amplify the faint fluorescence
• Significance
• The key to the breakthrough lies in a new artificial nanomaterial called D2PA
• The new material consists of a series of glass pillars in a layer of gold, speckled on their sides with gold dots and capped with a gold disk.
• The sides of each pillar are speckled with even tinier gold dots about 10 to 15 nanometers in diameter Each pillar is just 60 nanometers in diameter, 1/1,000th the width of a human hair
• The pillars are spaced 200 nanometers apart and capped with a disk of gold on each pillar
• Using this material laboratory test used to detect disease and perform biological research could be made more than 3 million times more sensitive
• Increased performance could greatly improve the early detection of cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and other disorders by allowing doctors to detect far lower concentrations of telltale markers than was previously practical.
• Of Note
• When a sample such as blood, saliva or urine is added to small glass vials containing antibodies that are designed to “capture” or bind to biomarkers of interest in the sample
• Another set of antibodies that have been labeled with a fluorescent molecule are then added to the mix
• When biomarkers are not present in the vials the fluorescent detection antibodies do not attach to anything and are washed away
• This new technology could play a significant role in other areas of chemistry and engineering, from light-emitting displays to solar energy harvesting
• Further Reading / In the News
• Nanotechnology breakthrough could dramatically improve medical tests

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

The rise and fall of Guinness bubbles

• The low down
• Why do the bubbles in a glass of stout beer such as Guinness sink while the beer is settling, even though the bubbles are lighter than the surrounding liquid?
• Stout beers such as Guinness foam due to a combination of carbon dioxide and nitrogen bubbles, while other beers foam due only to carbon dioxide bubbles
• In 2004 high-speed photography proved that bubbles do indeed sink
• Significance
• Simulations of the elongated vortices in a pint glass, where bubbles sink near the glass wall, and an anti-pint glass, where bubbles rise near the wall
• A team of mathematicians from the University of Limerick has shown that the sinking bubbles result from the shape of a pint glass
• As the glass narrows downwards and causes a circulation pattern that drives both fluid and bubbles downwards at the wall of the glass
• It is not just the bubbles themselves that are sinking (in fact, they’re still trying to rise), but the entire fluid is sinking and pulling the bubbles down with it.
• Of Note
• Researchers are still uncertain of the specific mechanism responsible for reducing the bubble density near the wall for the pint geometry and increasing it for the anti-pint one.
• The same flow pattern occurs with other types of beers, but the larger carbon dioxide bubbles are less subject to the downward drag than the smaller nitrogen bubbles in stout beers.
• For a tilted straight-sided glass the side in the direction of the tilt represents the normal situation of a pint glass, while the opposite side is the “anti-pint” – and bubbles can be seen to both rise and fall in the same glass.
• Further Reading / In the News
• Irish mathematicians explain why Guinness bubbles sink | Phys.org
• Falling stout bubbles explained | BBC News

You say tomato I say potato?

• The low down
• The genome of the tomato has been sequenced one from the “Heinz 1706” tomato as well as the sequence of a wild relative
• Researchers report that tomatoes possess some 35,000 genes arranged on 12 chromosomes
• Significance
• The team has captured virtually all the genes for various characteristics, such as taste, natural pest resistance or nutritional content
• Now that the genome sequence of one variety of tomato is known, it will also be easier and much less expensive for seed companies and plant breeders to sequence other varieties
• The sequencing of the tomato genome has implications for other plant species such as Strawberries, apples, melons, bananas and many other fleshy fruits, share some characteristics with tomatoes
• Information about the genes and pathways involved in fruit ripening can potentially be applied to them, helping to improve food quality, food security and reduce costs
• Of Note
• The gene sequencing confirms that the tomato is a fruit, not a vegetable
• The tomato shares 92% of its more than 34,000 protein-coding genes with its close relative, the recently sequenced potato
• Further Reading / In the News
• Tomato genome fully sequenced | phys.org
• ScienceShot: Tapping the Tomato’s Secrets | news.sciencemag.org

Hear your own heart beat

_{Credit: Renee Jones Schneider / Minneapolis Star Tribune.}

• Last time on SciByte
• Venus Transit & Dragon Spacecraft | SciByte 48 [May 29, 2012] – Creative Noise
• The low down
• The room is surrounded by double walls of concrete and insulated steel covered by 3.3-foot-thick wedges of fiberglass and blocks out 99.99 percent sound
• The room is so quiet that you are able to hear one’s own heart, stomach and even inner ear, or the sounds emitted by a cellphone’s display
• The room is so quiet that it throws your sensed off balance, causing hallucinations in some people; and no one has lasted longer than 45 minutes
• Further Reading / In the News
• A room so quiet no one can stand it for more than 45 minutes

56 years of Tornado’s

_{Credit: John Nelson}

• The low down
• Using information from data.gov, tech blogger John Nelson has created this spectacular image of tornado paths in the US over a 56 year period
• The storms are categorized by F-scale with the brighter neon lines representing more violent storms
• The tracker shows straight lines, but it is only because the data used in this study only tracked start and stop points
• Also provided are some stats on all the storms in the different categories
• Further Reading / In the News
• Stunning Visualization of 56 Years of Tornadoes in the US | UniverseToday.com
• Data.gov

SPACECRAFT UPDATE

Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo receives permit

_{Credit: VirginGalactic YouTube Channel | Credit: TSC}

• The low down
• Virgin Galactic’s flight system consists of two vehicles, SpaceShipTwo and its WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft
• SpaceShipTwo is designed to launch six passengers and two pilots into suborbital space and offer a few minutes of weightlessness, then return to Earth
• Significance
• Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo suborbital space tourism vehicle has won U.S. regulatory approval to begin powered flight testing of the rocket-propelled craft later this year
• The experimental launch permit from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) authorizes the Scaled Composites development team "to progress to the rocket-powered phase of test flight
• Before the rocket-powered testing phase they will perform aerodynamic performance of the spacecraft with the full weight of the rocket motor system on board
• Integration of key rocket motor components, already begun during a now-concluding period of downtime for routine maintenance, will continue in the autumn
• Multimedia
• YouTube Video : SS2 First Feather Flight, Mojave, May 2011)
• Further Reading / In the News
• FAA Clears Virgin Galactic to Begin SpaceShipTwo Rocket Test Flights | Space.com

GRAIL Moon mission extension

_{Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MIT}

• Last Time on SciByte
• Amazon & Martian Weather | SciByte 39 (March 27, 2012) – GRAIL First MoonKAM Image comes in from the Lunar Orbiters Ebb & Flow
• Exoplanets & Social Media | SciByte 29 (Jan 17, 2012) – GRAIL moon probes names finally named
• Revisiting the Moon | SciByte 27 (Jan 5, 27, 2012) – Moon meets GRAIL (Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory)
• The low down
• The team of NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission, with twin probes named Ebb and Flow, is now preparing for extended science operations starting Aug. 30 and continuing through Dec. 3, 2012.
• As of March 8, the spacecraft have operated around the clock for 89 days and had collected data covering the entire surface three times
• GRAIL has delivered to Earth over 99.99 percent of the data that could have been collected
• The extended mission goal is to take an even closer look at the moon’s gravity field.
• GRAIL mission planners will halve their current operating altitude to the lowest altitude that can be safely maintained
• The new orbit will be at an average altitude of 14 miles (23 kilometers) clearing some of the moon’s higher surface features by about 5 miles (8 kilometers),"
• To date over 70,000 student images of the moon have been obtained.
• Further Reading / In the News
• NASA lunar spacecraft GRAIL complete prime mission ahead of schedule | Phys.org

Dragon SpaceCraft Splashdown

_{Credit: YouTube Channel ReelNASA}

• Last time on SciByte
• Venus Transit & Dragon Spacecraft | SciByte 48 (May 29, 2012)
• SpaceX & Easter Island | SciByte 47 – VenSpaceX – Dragon shipment to ISS [May 22, 2012]
• The low down
• Released at 4:49am CT on May 31, 2012 after 5d, 16h and 5min attached to the space station
• The Draco thruster firing lasted 9 minutes and 50 seconds and sent Dragon plummeting through the Earth’s atmosphere where it had to survive extreme temperatures exceeding 3000 degrees F (1600 degrees C) before landing.
• The deorbit burn to drop Dragon out of orbit happened at 10:51 a.m. EDT (1451 GMT) with a nine minute, 50 second deorbit engine burn.
• The dual drogue parachutes deployed at 45,000 feet to stabilize and slow the spacecraft
• The drogue shoots helped to release the two main parachutes, each 116 feet in diameter, at about 10,000 feet
• SpaceX Dragon capsule made a water landing off the coast of Baja California, Mexico about 560 miles southwest of Los Angeles at 11:42 a.m. EDT (1542 GMT)
• It takes about two days to deliver the craft to the port of Los Angeles where the most critical cargo items will be removed for quick shipment to NASA
• YouTube Video
• Station Begins Dragon’s Release for Flight Home | ReelNASA
• SpaceX Dragon Splashes Down | ReelNASA
• Dragon Departs the Station | ReelNASA.gov
• Images
• Dragon just after splashdown (Credit: NASA/US Navy)
• Dragon spacecraft lands in the Pacific (Credit: NASA/US Navy)
• After Dragon’s splashdown, the dive team prepared it to lift onto barge (Credit: NASA/US Navy)
• Dragon Spacecraft in the Water | twimg.com
• Dragon on the Recovery ship | twimg.com
• Dragon’s parachutes | twimg.com
• Rough location of the Dragon splashdown location | maps.google.com
• Social Media
• SpaceX @SpaceX
• Elon Musk @elonmusk
• Further Reading / In the News
• Dragon’s Ocean Splashdown Caps Historic Opening of New Space Era | UniverseToday.com
• SpaceX Dragon Capsule Splashes Down in Pacific, Ending Historic Test Flight | Space.com
• SpaceX signs 1st customer for big new rocket | Phys.org

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

• June 09 1822 : 190 years ago : False teeth : Charles Graham received the first patent for false teeth. His were not the first false teeth in use, however. In the Colonial years, rotten teeth were considered the cause of many illnesses, and they would be extracted. Varied ways of replacing them were tried. For example, George Washington had at least four sets of false teeth (though none were wooden, despite a myth to that effect). Washington’s first dentures were made using human teeth inserted into carved ivory. In 1789, dentist John Greenwood of New York, made Washington another set from gold, hippo teeth, and hippo and elephant ivory. The one natural remaining tooth was a molar, and a hole was left for that.
• June 08 1937 : 75 years ago : Titan Arum : A specimen of the world’s largest flower, first bloomed in the U.S. in the NY Botanical Garden. The giant Sumatran Titan Arum, Amorphophallus titanum, measured 8½-ft high and 4-ft diam. Its putrid rotting-corpse fragrance repelled visitors. Native in Sumatran jungles of Indonesia, it is known there as the “corpse flower.” Dr. Odoardo Beccari, an Italian botanist, was the first western expert to find the Titan Arum in the Pading Province during 1878. Seeds he sent back to his patron, the Marchese Corsi Salviati were grown in Italy, and a few plants were at Beccari’s request sent to Kew Gardens in England in 1879. One of those seedlings flowered in June 1887. Another plant bloomed there in 1926, to wide attention.

Looking up this week : You May Have Seen

• Venus Transit
• In transit now. More image galleries next week!
• Transit of Venus 2012 in Pictures (Gallery)

Looking up this week

• Keep an eye out for …

• Wed, June 6 : Saturn is in the Southwest evening sky, with Spica below it

• Further Reading and Resources

• More on what’s in the sky this week

• Sky&Telescope

• SpaceWeather.com

• StarDate.org

• For the Southern hemisphere: SpaceInfo.com.au

• Constellations of the Southern Hemisphere : astronomyonline.org

• Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand : rasnz.org.nz

• AstronomyNow

• HeavensAbove

The post Spinal Cord Injuries & Venus Transit | SciByte 49 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

We take a look at the “are they / aren’t they travelling faster than the speed of light” Neutrino’s, a Legged Squad support robot that is both awesome and frightening, the science of leap year, tornadoes on the sun, space craft updates and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

Direct Download:

MP3 Download | Ogg Download | HD Video | Mobile Video | YouTube

RSS Feeds:

MP3 Feed | Ogg Feed | iTunes Feed

Support the Show:

   

Show Notes: