Tag: science

Rocket Lab Unveils "Electric" Rocket Engine

New submitter Adrian Harvey writes The New Zealand based commercial space company Rocket Lab has unveiled their new rocket engine which the media is describing as battery-powered. It still uses rocket fuel, of course, but has an entirely new propulsion cycle which uses electric motors to drive its turbopumps. To add to the interest over the design, it uses 3D printing for all its primary components. First launch is expected this year, with commercial operations commencing in 2016. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Rocket Lab Unveils "Electric" Rocket Engine

LAUSD OKs Girls-Only STEM School, Plans Boys-Only English Language Arts School

theodp writes: Citing statistics that showed a whopping 46 more boys than girls passed the AP Computer Science Exam in 2011-12, the 640, 000+ student Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) on Tuesday approved a waiver to enable the District to operate a single-gender, all-girls STEM School called the Girls Academic Leadership Academy (GALA). Students in GALA will follow a six year sequence of computer courses starting in middle school that will culminate in AP Computer Science Principles. “Fewer females take AP courses in math, science, or computer science, and they are not as successful as males in receiving passing scores of 3, 4 or 5, ” argued the General Waiver Request (PDF, 700+ pages). “An all girls environment is reasonably necessary for the school to improve the self-confidence of girls in their academic abilities, especially in STEM areas where an achievement gap currently exists. GALA’s admissions shall also comply with AB 1266 to ensure male students who identify as female are admitted to the school.” The school’s CS-related Partners include the UCLA Exploring Computer Science Program, as well as Google-bankrolled Girls Who Code, Black Girls Code, and NCWIT. One of the reasons the all-girls STEM school reportedly got the green light is that its backers satisfied federal regulations requiring a “substantially equal school” for excluded male students by submitting a plan for a companion all-boys school that would emphasize English Language Arts, where they often fall short of girls’ test scores, rather than GALA’s focus on STEM. One suspects the no-fan-of-gender-restricted-public-schools ACLU may call BS on this maneuver. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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LAUSD OKs Girls-Only STEM School, Plans Boys-Only English Language Arts School

IT Worker’s Lawsuit Accuses Tata of Discrimination

dcblogs writes An IT worker is accusing Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) of discriminating against American workers and favoring “South Asians” in hiring and promotion. It’s backing up its complaint, in part, with numbers. The lawsuit, filed this week in federal court in San Francisco, claims that 95% of the 14, 000 people Tata employs in the U.S. are South Asian or mostly Indian. It says this practice has created a “grossly disproportionate workforce.” India-based Tata achieves its “discriminatory goals” in at least three ways, the lawsuit alleges. First, the company hires large numbers of H-1B workers. Over from 2011 to 2013, Tata sponsored nearly 21, 000 new H-1B visas, all primarily Indian workers, according to the lawsuit’s count. Second, when Tata hires locally, “such persons are still disproportionately South Asian, ” and, third, for the “relatively few non-South Asians workers that Tata hires, ” it disfavors them in placement, promotion and termination decisions. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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IT Worker’s Lawsuit Accuses Tata of Discrimination

New Horizons Captures First Color Image of Pluto and Charon

192_kbps writes: NASA published today the first color image of Pluto and Charon captured by the New Horizons probe, revealing a reddish world. “The fastest spacecraft ever launched, New Horizons has traveled a longer time and farther away – more than nine years and three billion miles – than any space mission in history to reach its primary target. Its flyby of Pluto and its system of at least five moons on July 14 will complete the initial reconnaissance of the classical solar system. This mission also opens the door to an entirely new “third” zone of mysterious small planets and planetary building blocks in the Kuiper Belt, a large area with numerous objects beyond Neptune’s orbit.” The picture is blurry, but far better than the few pixels Hubble can resolve, the image whets the appetite for New Horizon’s closest approach on July 14th.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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New Horizons Captures First Color Image of Pluto and Charon

Denver TSA Screeners Manipulated System In Order To Grope Men’s Genitals

McGruber writes: The CBS affiliate in Denver reports: “Two Transportation Security Administration screeners at Denver International Airport have been fired after they were discovered manipulating passenger screening systems to allow a male TSA employee to fondle the genital areas of attractive male passengers.” According to law enforcement reports obtained during the CBS4 investigation, a male TSA screener told a female colleague in 2014 that he “gropes” male passengers who come through the screening area at DIA. “He related that when a male he finds attractive comes to be screened by the scanning machine he will alert another TSA screener to indicate to the scanning computer that the party being screened is a female. When the screener does this, the scanning machine will indicate an anomaly in the genital area and this allows (the male TSA screener) to conduct a pat-down search of that area.” Although the TSA learned of the accusation on Nov. 18, 2014 via an anonymous tip from one of the agency’s own employees, reports show that it would be nearly three months before anything was done.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Denver TSA Screeners Manipulated System In Order To Grope Men’s Genitals

The Best Cure For Balding May Be to Pluck What’s Left

Shaved heads have come in and out of fashion over the past few decades, but some people don’t have the option of allowing their locks to grow. Thankfully, for those who do suffer from hair loss, or alopecia, help may be at hand. Somewhat counter-intuitively an effective treatment for baldness may come from plucking a certain number of hairs – in a specific formation – from the scalp. Read more…

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The Best Cure For Balding May Be to Pluck What’s Left

Linux 4.0 Kernel Released

An anonymous reader writes “The Linux 4.0 kernel has been released. Linux 4.0 brings many features including live patching, Radeon DisplayPort Audio, RadeonSI fan control improvements, new OverlayFS functionality, Intel Quark SoC support, and a heck of a lot more. Linus’s release announcement reads in part: “So I decided to release 4.0 as per the normal schedule, because there really weren’t any known issues, and while I’ll be traveling during the end of the upcoming week due to a college visit, I’m hoping that won’t affect the merge window very much. We’ll see. Linux 4.0 was a pretty small release both in linux-next and in final size, although obviously ‘small’ is all relative. It’s still over 10k non-merge commits. But we’ve definitely had bigger releases (and judging by linux-next v4.1 is going to be one of the bigger ones).” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Linux 4.0 Kernel Released

This Is the First Section of a Giant Map of the Universe’s Dark Matter

A team of cosmologists is creating an enormous map of how dark matter is distributed across the Universe—and this is the first section to be completed. Read more…

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This Is the First Section of a Giant Map of the Universe’s Dark Matter

Planes Don’t Carry Tanks Of Oxygen.  So What’s In Your Emergency Mask?

You’re on a plane. The oxygen masks have dropped. While you’re screaming and crying, does it occur to you to wonder where that oxygen comes from? It’s not a scuba tank. Here’s how weed killer, fireworks, and candy destroyers keep you alive. Read more…

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Planes Don’t Carry Tanks Of Oxygen.  So What’s In Your Emergency Mask?