Meet Homo naledi, Our New Human Ancestor - http://clapway.com/2015/10/06/homo-naledi-skulls-found-in-africa-darwin/

Meet Homo naledi

Cavers Steven Tucker and Rick Hunter were spelunking in South Africa and uncovered one of the most significant discoveries in human evolution in last 50 years – the skulls and remains of Homo naledi.

Not Quite Human, But Close

The new hominin species was announced in September by an international team of more than 60 scientists led by American paleoanthropologist Lee R. Berger, also a professor of human evolution studies at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. The species name, H. naledi, signifies the cave where the bones were discovered. “naledi” means “star” in the Sesotho language.

Homo Neladi, although close to being human, it is not. The species had a tiny brain, around half the size of a humans, and a large ape like body. Tucker and Hunter were exploring the Rising Star cave outside of Johannesburg, aka the Cradle of Humankind, two years ago and found a trove of human-like skeletons.

Although the cave had been traversed many times in the past, these remains were distinguished for having small wiry frames.

The Details

Hunter and Tucker knew the importance of the discovery and immediately set out to find a team to help extract the remains. They made a post on Facebook that quickly skyrocketed, and they received many supporters. From those, they strategically chose 6 women to form a team and extract the skeletons.

Altogether the team extracted 1,550 specimens. They were able to recover four partial skulls, two males and two females. They also found nearly complete skeletons. There were adult, juvenile and infant remains extracted,

Approximately 20 scientists from 15 countries studied the findings both on and off site and are sharing their discoveries as they happen.

Homo Neladi is even closer to being human than its found predecessor, Homo erectus, which is dated to having lived 1.6 million years ago.

Homo neladi has not been carbon dated yet.

The creatures were practically half human. The teeth were close to being human; the back half match while the front half does not. The hip’s top half is human like and the bottom half ape like.

Humans are partially defined by their logical processes, so Darwin, eat your heart out.

So If You’re Headed to South Africa to Make Some Discoveries Yourself, Check This Out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhjE7kUwfv8

Meet Homo naledi, Our New Human Ancestor

#Animal inspired #space technology -- coming your way! - http://clapway.com/2015/08/17/nasa-testing-climbing-robots-inspired-by-geckos-436/

Two pairs of sticky feet, a round body and some inspiration by geckos, the amazing lizards that can climb easily on walls, were enough for NASA to create a next generation climbing robot to help the engineers carry repair work on the ISS (International Space Station).

After that and NASA’s new rocket design to get us to Mars, you’ll believe that everything is possible.

GECKOS?

Geckos, according to the Wikipedia are lizards living in warm climates and their size ranges from 0.62 to 23.6 inches. Their toes have an adaptation that allow them to adhere to most surfaces using their spatula-shaped setae on their footpads.

That was the concept that Aaron Parness and his colleagues from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California used and created a material with synthetic hairs, much thinner than a human hair. These hairs bend everytime a force is applied and that’s how the designed material sticks to a desired surface, supporting more than 150 Newtons of force.

“This is how the gecko does it,” Parness says, and you can watch a mini demonstration by the team here.

WHAT DID THE TESTS SAY?

In a zero gravity test, the robots were able to hang on and handle a 22 pounds cube and a 220 pounds person. As with geckos’ toes, the prototype feet that NASA designed did not lose their effectiveness even after 30,000 stick-and-unstick repetitions and the hope is the new material could soon be used on the International Space Station.

The amazing material that was used to develop these revolutionary robotic parts has been tested under extreme conditions and its effectiveness is not influenced by radiation or temperature. Its strength could come handy for ISS employees and NASA has already created different sizes of patches that can be used to hang objects on walls in zero-gravity.

NASA HAS BEEN BUSY LATELY

With the vision to use robot technology beyond the ISS borders (or even in the outer space) Parness and his team of researchers created hand-operated “astronaut anchors,” and they are also testing a lemur climbing robot, which is equipped with gecko super-feet.

Ah, technology.

>FOR MORE SPACE NEWS YOU CAN ALWAYS VISIT CLAPWAY SPACE

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Been to space yet? Space Scouts will take you there:

NASA Testing Climbing Robots Inspired by Geckos

#Facebook vs. #Twitter on the news front. Who gets your vote as the source for your breaking news? - http://clapway.com/2015/08/12/facebook-to-compete-with-twitter-with-new-breaking-news-app-245/

Facebook has been in the news quite a bit as of late — mostly in regards to testing new ideas like its giant drone that will spread free Wi-Fi over certain parts of the world, or testing out their new storefront. Now, it looks like Facebook is getting ready to compete toe-to-toe with Twitter as the company is looking into developing a news application that functions quite a bit like Twitter.

Not So Fast

It’s definitely true that a lot of people rely on Twitter for announcements and breaking news, but there are a lot of other social features that allows users to interact with each other. The Facebook app that Business Insider reported about is more focused on the business nature. That means users won’t necessarily be interacting with each other, and they won’t be creating content either.

Instead, Business Insider suggests that the app will be a “broadcast-only experience.” Facebook will only be allowing partnered companies to produce content. Users will follow various topics they are interested in and receive instant alerts that are limited to 100 characters — slightly less than Twitter’s 140 limitation.

Facebook Hopes to Clean Up the User Experience

One aspect that Facebook hopes will give it an advantage over Twitter is reliant on how Facebook’s new app, currently in alpha, will curate posts better. Information about the app is still pretty vague, but Facebook is hoping that news won’t dissipate into the social masses as quickly as it happens on Twitter.

Facebook believes that this provides new users with a bad experience since the more people they follow, the faster their Twitter feed moves. Some users may never see a post on Twitter unless the tweet is retweeted by someone else or the original tweeter, but with Facebook’s new app, news will stay relevant for longer.

Facebook Is Trying to Stay Relevant

We’ll know more about Facebook’s new app as the company gets ready to share more details about it. This app is just the latest addition to the company’s rapidly expanding suite of apps that it hopes will help maintain its relevancy moving forward. Facebook also owns Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

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For more tech related reviews and news, check out Clapway Trends channel:

Facebook to Compete With Twitter With New Breaking News App

Brown Dwarfs Share the Same Making Process as Stars - http://clapway.com/2015/07/24/brown-dwarfs-share-the-same-making-process-as-stars654/

It’s hard to believe that only twenty years ago, in 1995, the first dwarf was discovered. It’s even harder to believe the substellar object was found so late when it had been a theory since the sixties.

Yet, so much can happen in so little amount of time. Recently on the astronomy front, a brown dwarf was observed to have shot off some jets, which is pretty cool for a couple of reasons.

But just in case you were confused about this and are not familiar with astronomy all too much, brown dwarfs are objects in space that are classified between being gas giants and stars. Since they navigate the middle area, it’s been tough trying to guess how they form, as not much is known about them.

Yet, most of the theories said that the dwarfs were more than likely similar to stars in how they form. So, everyone tended to go along with it, and that is why the news today is so exciting.

By studying these masses, we now understand the universe better, which is why a press release by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory spoke about the jets released by brown dwarfs in observation.

The Study about Brown Dwarfs

To help understand brown dwarfs better, an observation was conducted 450 light years away from Earth. There in the bull constellation, four of the brown dwarfs in the sample emitted jets.

This was a tad odd as this behavior usually found in stars bigger during the early part of their formation. So, scientists were a bit thrown off by this. The instruments that detected the jets relayed info by the Karl G. Jansky VLA by radio observation. Thereafter, the dwarfs were observed by different instruments in order to say that this was a real finding and not a fluke or false finding.

finding confirmed, then published

Once it was confirmed, the findings were then published in the Astrophysical Journal on the 30th of June. For all involved and the science community, the findings present the first time that a dwarf was observed displaying such a behavior. No other dwarf has been seen shooting jets in an early part of its formation.

This would mean that the theory that dwarfs form similarly to stars despite being too small to have Hydrogen-1 fusion reactions at their cores and such holds true. If dwarfs had not emitted jets or done anything like this, it would mean that the dwarfs have a similar formation to that of planets.

brown dwarf formation makes it the star’s little brother

So what does this mean? Now, just think as dwarfs as the little brother or sister to the stars. Or better yet, think of it as mini me, without as much power as a star and less mass.

Thus, there is one mystery solved about the universe, only a billion more to go. Further studies may reveal more about the behavior about dwarfs so keep a look out for those.

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Brown Dwarfs Share the Same Making Process as Stars

Solar Storm hit Earth this weekend - http://clapway.com/2015/06/28/solar-storm-hit-earth-this-weekend789/

Solar Storm sounds like something out of a Science fiction movie

This weekend, a solar storm was expected to hit Earth and did, with a coronal mass ejection released by the Sun on Thursday. The ejection was projected to arrive on Saturday afternoon and perhaps continue to have effects until today. This report was announced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center.

What effect does solar storm have on us?

As soon as the solar storm arrived to the planet, one of the first noticeable things about its presence was the Northern Lights being seen further south in the globe than usual. A news report on the possibility of seeing the Northern Lights can be seen here. But supposedly, if the skies were clear for you yesterday evening, you had a chance to see some of the lights in addition to the upcoming event on Tuesday night: Venus and Jupiter’s planetary conjunction. It sure is a busy week in cool space phenomena.

Solar storm messing with my internet gear!

If the solar storm were massive enough, it could mess up some electricity supplies and take out some transformers, as evidenced by the Quebec blackout in March 1989 from a massive solar storm. To help prepare for the storms, grids are strengthened to take the anomalies caused by the storms which can make weird things happen in the network. So don’t be surprised if your electric went a little wonky. The weaker storm that hit earlier in the week may have messed with the frequency.

A little collaboration doesn’t hurt

Efforts are made between local electricity companies and the Space Weather Prediction Center to prep for solar storms and be given warning and estimation of the arrival of the storms by the latter. However, another Quebec blackout is unlikely, which is fortunate- replacing the number of transformers destroyed that day wouldn’t be a quick and easy job.

So, people who weren’t be able to afford to go near the Arctic Circle to see the Northern Lights got their chance to see it in the Southern States yesterday. Time will tell what other space events will happen this week.

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Solar Storm hit Earth this weekend

Read about Facebook"s new algo. - http://clapway.com/2015/06/15/facebook-algorithm-gets-tweaked-to-know-the-users-time-spent-on-stories-234/

Facebook plans to bring more relevant news to the users so there is more tweaked Facebook algorithm behind the stories which mostly users prefer.

Now you may see more relevant news courtesy Facebook algorithm bubbling up in your news feed when you are using the social networking site. Earlier, the measurement of Facebook algorithm by checking the users’ news feeds was confined to the amount of likes, comments and shares. As per the experts, the likes, shares or comments never reveal the real story but Facebook algorithm does. According to recent market research by Facebook, it isn’t necessary that if a person is not sharing, liking or comment on a news feed, doesn’t really mean that it is not interesting for him. Facebook algorithm goes to a higher length and brings the best news feed to its users.

Often it has been noticed that people see a particular information but never like, share or comment even if it is interesting. Algorithm is a much helpful tool then simply checking the likes. If a person is reading a news item for 10 seconds, it could mean either enjoyment or slow Internet connection. Know more on Facebook algorithm here.

Page admins need not worry about change in Facebook algorithm.

This has made a lot of Page Admins and celebrity PR teams go on a slight tizzy. They are thinking if it would have any otherwise effect on their promotion and if it will reach maximum people. But Facebook has assured that the pages meant for company or celebrity promotion will not be affected.

It is not the first time that any change has been made in the Facebook algorithm. The company has been doing major changes since 2013. Earlier a user could see at least 1,500 stories floating from varied fan pages and friends each time they logged in. From 1500, Facebook came down to 300 which was a major change in last two years. The Facebook algorithms are customized and developed to meet the various specifications. Learn more about algorithms here.

Facebook algorithm changes have been happening since 2013.

In past various incidents, Facebook has also faced controversies for its enhancements. For instance, one of their experiments had hiding a few emotional words from the users’ news feeds. It was done to check what kind of impact it caused. With this change, it is expected to receive better, qualitative and relevant news feed as you are scroll down the website. Just wait and watch for bigger and better.

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Facebook Algorithm Gets Tweaked to Know the User"s Time Spent on Stories

If you"re a journalist, this could be of great interest. - http://clapway.com/2015/06/10/apples-latest-news-app-is-worrisome-for-the-journalists-123/

Apple’s News app can algorithmically compile stories from the major media giants.

If you’re a journalist, this could be of great interest. Apple has come up with the latest news app which will compile all the top stories algorithmically thus, controlling the news distribution. This news has definitely taken the entire media world by storm.

The media agencies are mostly worried about the technology companies owning the network and news distribution system. Apple is already is associated with highly established publishing partners for latest app named as News (which includes CNN). Read more about the app here.

News on the News App is expected to be revolutionary for the consumer but a death knell for many.

In this regard, there is huge confusion and one can notice immense war of words from around the world. As per some media companies, it is really difficult to pace up with mammoths in the global arena. Facebook was already controlling on the news consumption and now with the arrival of Apple’s new app, things are going get tougher.

According to the technology experts, this news app going to be more like a personalized magazine owning a large variety of stories. The content is going to be very engaging as it will have equal amount of pictures, maps, audio and visual content. Made for iPhones and iPads, the app is way to reach out to more and more readers. The media outlets which will participate shall be the complete owners of the money they make from selling the ads that are attached to their news. Though, these participants may cede on the control over the news environment.

With the arrival of this app, the individual apps or news brands shall only serve as the source. From the perspective of consumer, this is something great as they have a lot of pure content to read and from strong sources. At the same time, publishers shall also be able to earn brownie points.

News readers will see various topics they are following and publisher channels.

Experts say that from the end of Apple, there are no more loyal to any one news provider rather several places delivering news. This is definitely a setback for many news and media companies. Let’s hope something better comes up for the journalists.

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Apple"s Latest News App Is Worrisome For The Journalists