Curating the Internet: Science and technology digest for March 1, 2020

IEEE Spectrum's weekly selection of awesome robot videos; A report on browser privacy finds that Brave leads the pack, Microsoft Edge and Yandex trail; Theorists still don't totally understand how planes fly; A new study sees brain waves as a form of "what if" testing; and a Steem essay with embedded video describing a first-hand observation of baboons in the wild

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Fresh and Informative Content Daily: Welcome to my little corner of the blockchain

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Links and micro-summaries from my 1000+ daily headlines. I filter them so you don't have to.

First posted on my Steem blog: SteemIt, SteemPeak^*, StemGeeks.

1. Video Friday: Child Robot Affetto Learning New Facial Expressions - This week, the IEEE Spectrum weekly selection of awesome robot videos opens with a compilation video from the DARPA Subterranean Challenge Urban Circuit, then moves on to two videos of a robotic arm that uses a covariant brain for picking, packaging, and sorting. Next up are three videos of an "android" child robot from Osaka University that's under development and learning facial expressions. The article says that it's looking more realistic than previous iterations, but to me it's still squarely in the uncanny valley. Additional videos include robots for automating retrieval of library books, a video of a robotic hand for NASA's astrobee, and many more.
   
   Here is a planetary explorer from NASA that can dig trenches, clear small rocks, and construct ramps:
   


2. A new report shows the most popular web browsers in the world are sending companies your history or personal data. Here's how each browser's privacy stacks up. - Most private by far: Brave; Second tier - Chrome, Firefox, and Safari; Privacy laggards - Yandex and Micsoft Edge. Study author, Douglas Leith wrote, "As for users of Edge and Yandex, for what its worth my advice would be to change browser". Browser companies responded by saying that the browsers comply to various reference standards and that users can adjust settings to make their browsing experience more private. Click through for more about the relevant details from each browser. Here is the full study.


3. No One Can Explain Why Planes Stay In The Air - This article provides another reminder of the quote that's attributed to John von Neumann, "In mathematics, you don't understand things. You just get used to them."
   
   On a mathematical level, engineers know how to design planes that will stay aloft, but there are two competing theories to explain the forces and factors behind lift. The article notes that there is widespread agreement on the symbolic mathematics that produces flight, but there is wide disagreement about the "physical commonsense explanation of lift". The most common explanation comes from Bernoulli, and suggests that the curved upper surface of a wing causes the air above the wing to move faster than the air below the wing, creating a low pressure zone that leads the wing to rise. The main problems with this theory are that it doesn't explain how or why the air above the wing comes to move faster or how/why this creates a low pressure zone. Finally, the theory must be incomplete because an airplane with just one curved surface on its wing is also capable of flying upside-down.
   
   The second theory of lift is based on Newton's third law of motion, the principle of action and reaction. This suggests that a plane stays in the air by pushing down on the air below it. This theory is more complete, and it's observable in the every-day experience of sticking one's hand out of a car window and feeling it rise. However, it completely fails to account for the higher speed and lower pressure that always emerges above a wing's upper surface while the plane is in motion.
   
   In addition to bringing the von Neumann quote to mind, this also lends credence to the argument by Nassim Nicholas Taleb that the model of theoretical science feeding into applied science is often backwards. Instead, Taleb argues that useful inventions are most often made by practitioners and only later explained by theoreticians. -h/t Daniel Lemire


4. In Brain Waves, Scientists See Neurons Juggle Possible Futures - Last month, a team of researchers published in Cell describing the results of their work looking at the brains of rats while they (the rats) were in the process of making decisions. The work was led by Loren Frank. The team paid special attention to a particular type of neurons, known as "place cells". The neurons are nicknamed, the brain's GPS, because they are known to be used for mentally mapping an animal's location as it moves about through space. As an animal moves around in its environment, these brain cells fire frequently and in a particular sequence (8 times per second in rats). This repeated firing is known as "theta cycles". What the team learned in this latest research is that these cells also fire when an animal is about to act. In the moments leading up to an action, the cells fire repeatedly in a back and forth pattern as if the animal is sampling from a buffet of options, or performing "what if tests", for an upcoming course of action. By training the rats to complete a maze by way of two alternating paths, the researchers were able to observe the brain at the moment of decision, and as previously described, they saw alternating firing patterns that were associated with each possible choice up until the moment of action. The article describes the full firing pattern, which includes a marker for the current position, saying,

   The whole pattern looked something like: current location, possibility of going left, current location, possibility of going right, and repeat.

   This research contrasted with previous work in the area, because the neuronal firing was observed to be fully consistent with other theta-cycle brain firings.


5. Steem @julianhorack: Rare baboon sighting on the wild rocky cliffs of the south Cape coast of Africa - In this post, the author describes an encounter with a troop of baboons near a protected area in South Africa. The post includes discussion of how baboons travel together as a troop, and how - when young males mature - they split off from the group and form a new one of their own. It also notes the conflict that arises between local people and baboons because of the animals' sometimes destructive behavior. Additionally, it covers the risk of extinction that's faced by some of Africa's species, including the elephant, lion, and rhinoceros, as a result of poaching. Finally, the post contains two embedded youtube videos with first-hand footage of the baboon encounter in a spot that overlooks the Indian ocean.
   
   Here is the second of two videos but click through for the description, the first video, and to give the post an upvote.
   
   
   

   (A 10% beneficiary setting has been applied to this post for @julianhorack.)
   

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