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Federal agents used a Stingray to track an immigrant's phone
Investigators from Immigration and Custom Enforcement as well as the FBI have been using controversial cell-spoofing devices to secretly track down undocumented immigrants, court records show. According to a report the Detroit News, which obtained an unsealed federal search warrant affidavit, FBI and ICE agents in Michigan used a Stingray device to ensnare a restaurant worker from El Salvador in March. The devices, which were originally intended for counter-terrorism use, have come under fire because there are currently no clear rules governing when law enforcement is allowed to deploy them. Even in cases where authorities have a clear target in mind, they run the risk of exposing personal information of other innocent people in range.
Dwarf planet Ceres is 'oozing' with water
Scientists already knew via remote observations that Ceres, the dwarf planet (or humongous asteroid if you prefer), has plenty of water in it. The Dawn probe has now revealed that the asteroid is composed of as much as 30 percent water at the poles, explaining its ice volcano and weird bright spots. "It's just oozing," Planetary Science Institute's Thomas Prettyman told Nature, adding that you'd "just swipe and find the ice table" at Ceres' northern pole.
ICYMI: One day, devices will charge when they're pushed
try{document.getElementById("aol-cms-player-1").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: Michigan State University engineers built a handful of devices that have one thing in common: They all charge when they're pressed on or otherwise pushed because the silicone wafers inside have ions in each layer that create energy when folded or manipulated. If the phone Gods care a thing about us, this could mean that one day our devices won't need to be charged at all-- except by being used.
Nanotubes can turn water solid when it should be boiling
Scientists have long known that under the right conditions, small amounts of water can be coaxed into changing its boiling or freezing point. A pot of water takes less energy to boil on the top of Mount Everest, for instance, and liquid under pressure takes a little more heat to convert into steam. A group of researchers at MIT has recently taken this effect a step further -- observing that water in nanotubes can actually freeze into a solid at temperatures well beyond its natural boiling point.
Massive Antarctica ice sheet is cracking due to warming oceans
When a giant (225 square mile) slice of Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier broke off in 2015, scientists wondered exactly what caused it. Well, they now have an explanation... and it's not very reassuring. They've determined through satellite imagery that the break started when a rift was formed at the base of the West Antarctica Ice Sheet, almost 20 miles inland, in 2013. Most likely, warming oceans intruded the sheet at the bedrock well below sea level, triggering cracks that gradually made their way upward. In other words, Antarctic ice could be much more susceptible to breaking up than it seems on the surface, and that separation may be happening faster than researchers expected.
Mars hides a gigantic ice sheet that may help astronauts
As a rule, the truly large deposits of ice on Mars are at the poles... right? No. Researchers using the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's ground-penetrating radar have discovered that the planet's Utopia Planitia basin is hiding a thick (260 to 560 feet) ice sheet larger than the state of New Mexico. It's at least 50 percent pure, too. Observers had long suspected that the area had water thanks to surface cracking and depressions, but the previous explorer, the Mars Odyssey spacecraft, couldn't study much deeper than the surface.
NASA maps the thawed parts of the Greenland ice sheet
NASA has created the first map of the bottom of the Greenland ice sheet, showing which parts have begun thawing and which remain frozen as ever. This is the first time what's underneath the surface of the massive block of ice has been mapped, because the only access scientists have to it is a few bore holes. They've been trying to find out what's going on underneath for a long time, since it's essential for predicting the sheet's movements in the future. "If the ice at its bottom is at the melting point temperature, or thawed," said NASA Goddard glaciologist and team leader Joe MacGregor, "then there could be enough liquid water there for the ice to flow faster and affect how quickly it responds to climate change."
Russia debuts the largest ever nuclear icebreaker
Russian cargo ships understandably have to wade through a lot of ice, and the country plans to deal with that frozen water in style. It recently floated out the Arktika, which it bills as the "largest and most powerful" nuclear-powered icebreaker in the world. At nearly 569 feet long and 112 feet wide, the twin-reactor boat can carve a gigantic path through some of the sea's toughest obstacles -- it can cut through ice roughly 10 feet thick. It can haul about 36,000 short tons, and there's a helicopter to scout for any upcoming floes.
Egyptian student faces deportation over Trump threat
An Egyptian student studying in California faces deportation after posting a threatening message about Donald Trump on Facebook. 23-year-old Emad Elsayed posted a picture of Trump on FB back in February with a caption to the effect of, according to his attorney, "If I killed this guy I wouldn't mind serving a life sentence and the world would thank me." While this statement seems fairly innocuous compared to the abuse President Obama endures on social media (and most women for that matter), federal agents have since detained Elsayed and are now threatening to deport him.
NASA finds that Pluto has blue skies and surface water ice
Move over Mars, NASA's just confirmed that Pluto, everybody's favorite Kuiper belt object/celestial punching bag, not only has expansive fields of water ice on its surface but blue skies as well. Granted Pluto has neither the thick atmosphere nor global oceans that the Earth does, so the "blue sky" NASA's New Horizon's team spotted last week is actually more of a haze. And, technically, the haze particles themselves would likely appear either red or grey to the naked eye. However, the fact that they appear blue from this distance tells NASA a lot.
The Big Picture: Saturn illuminates the surface of its icy moon
Saturn's moon Enceladus is covered in ice. We already knew that. But what you see above is evidence of just how icy it actually is. The right side of the celestial body isn't illuminated by the sun. Nope, that's actually brightened by the light reflecting off of the adjacent ringed planet according to NASA. If you're looking for something a bit more solar in nature, take a peek at the bright wedge on the moon's left side. The aerospace outfit says that these types of pictures from Cassini are "designed to capture the extended plume of icy material" coming off the moon's south pole.
NASA's latest Pluto discoveries include hazy skies and flowing ice
Ready for another dose of Pluto news? Of course you are! During an event today, NASA shared its latest discoveries in regards to the icy dwarf planet. First, detailed imagery from New Horizon's Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) shows "geologic activity" on the surface that includes flowing ice on a plain known as Sputnik Planum. That area lies in the western part of that massive heart-shaped region you've likely noticed in photos. NASA says the ice there flowed, and may still be flowing now, in a way that resembles the movement of glaciers on Earth. In the southern portion of Sputnik Planum, researchers discovered a range of icy mountains that rise about a mile and can be compared to the Appalachian Mountains here in the States. In fact, the peaks have been informally named Hillary Montes and are located near another range named Norgay Montes. The names are in honor of Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay -- explorers who first reached the summit of Mount Everest in the 1950s.
Watson's spicy, ginger-laced gazpacho
'Cognitive Cooking with Chef Watson' is a collaboration between IBM and the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City. Once a week, as part of an ongoing series, we'll be preparing one recipe from the book until we've made all of them. Wish us luck. So this is how I knew I was in trouble the first time I saw Cognitive Cooking with Chef Watson (which, by the way, only happened after I agreed to cook my way through the book): there's a specific section for home cooks and it's only seven recipes long. This particular section of the book is a bit different from the rest. For it IBM partnered with Bon Appétit and trimmed the reservoir of recipes that Watson was riffing off of to just the 9,000 or so already in the publication's database. The results are much more friendly for those that don't have access to an commercial kitchen, but they're no less interesting from a flavor profile and serve as evidence that even mortal humans can benefit from Watson's creative kick in the pants.
Arctic drone is tough enough to monitor icy waters
Sure, there are already drones out there that can take a bruising, but can they survive the brutally cold Arctic Ocean? Laval University's Argo drone can. The newly developed robotic submersible can reach depths of 6,560 feet as it collects data about organisms in bitterly cold waters, and its laser scanning system helps it avoid ice whenever it returns to the surface to transmit data. Not that Argo needs to poke its head above the water very often -- it can run for up to four years at a time. The machine is still in testing at the moment. If everything goes well, however, the drone will be tracking the biological effects of climate change within a matter of months. [Image credits: AP Photo/John McConnico (top), Claudie Marec/Laval University (bottom)]
Watson's South American spin on a Canadian classic
'Cognitive Cooking with Chef Watson' is a collaboration between IBM and the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City. Once a week, as part of an ongoing series, we'll be preparing one recipe from the book until we've made all of them. Wish us luck. So far we've just been working from the front of Cognitive Cooking with Chef Watson, towards the back. But we're going to start jumping around a bit now. Partially for convenience sake (it's just easier to make all three poutine recipes in a row), but mostly because I want to avoid using my oven as much as possible. It's hot and humid in New York and I live in a small one bedroom apartment. Basically just looking at my oven makes the temperature rise about 20 degrees in here. So we're jumping a few recipes ahead to take on the Peruvian Potato Poutine, a South American twist on a Canadian classic. This is one of the recipes that Watson inspired the chefs from the Institute for Culinary Education to whip up at SXSW in 2014 at their cognitive computing food truck. So, you can sort of think of this as a Chef Watson 1.0 dish.
Cooking with Watson: Caymanian Plantain Dessert
Cognitive Cooking with Chef Watson is a collaboration between IBM and the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City. Once a week, as part of an ongoing series, we'll be preparing one recipe from the book until we've made all of them. Wish us luck. So for the second week in a row, Watson and his culinary interpreters are appealing to my sweet tooth. Except, where last week's pastries had a savory backbone to keep things interesting, the Caymanian plantain dessert is a full-on tooth-rotting sugar bomb. And a damn delicious one at that. Here's the thing about IBM's cognitive computing project: You never know quite what you're going to get. On the surface the list of flavors here seems like an obvious combination, but as chef Michael Laiskonis points out in the accompanying notes, it's in how they all come together. See Watson isn't just about jamming together seemingly incongruous ingredients. The idea is to push human creativity, in whatever area that may be. It just so happens that in this case IBM is trying to broaden your kitchen vocabulary.
Cooking with Watson: Spanish almond crescent
Cognitive Cooking with Chef Watson is a collaboration between IBM and the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City. Once a week, as part of an ongoing series, we'll be preparing one recipe from the book until we've made all of them. Wish us luck. Watson's latest challenge to my self-esteem and sanity, the Spanish almond crescent, is the first dessert in the Cognitive Cooking book. And it's an incredibly challenging one. But, I'll say this up front, if you put in the effort, the payoff is well worth it. These pastries are quite unique and delicious. They're not so surprising that the first bite catches you off guard, like say last week's Swiss-Thai asparagus quiche. But that's a good thing. These little puffs of sweet and savory are different, but approachable; unfamiliar, but comforting.
Cooking with Watson: Swiss-Thai asparagus quiche
Cognitive Cooking with Chef Watson is a collaboration between IBM and the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City. Once a week, as part of an ongoing series, we'll be preparing one recipe from the book until we've made all of them. Wish us luck. Another week, another quiche. I can't say I went into this one with high hopes after last week's funky salmon number. But, at least there is no fish here. Instead you've got a dash of Southeast Asian flavors, some asparagus and a buttery, flaky crust. This is pretty much a variation on the formula that produced Watson's biggest success, the turmeric paella -- combine the flavors of one region, with the presentation of another, and voilà! The Swiss-Thai asparagus quiche puts the flavors of Thailand (and a hint of Greece) in an open-top custard pastry often associated with French cuisine. And once again, IBM's cognitive computing efforts succeed in pushing its human chef interpreters to make something unique.
Cooking with Watson: Scandinavian salmon quiche
Cognitive Cooking with Chef Watson is a collaboration between IBM and the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City. Once a week, as part of an ongoing series, we'll be preparing one recipe from the book until we've made all of them. Wish us luck. Sometimes, the ingredient lists for these Watson recipes read like a Chopped contestant's worst nightmare. Inside the basket you will find: tart shells, gruyere, sour cream and salmon filets. Almost any time you mix cheese and fish, you know you're in trouble. (Update: I acknowledge that both tuna melts, and bagels with cream cheese and lox are rare exceptions to this rule.) But, if anyone is capable of taming the culinary cruelty of Watson it would be the brilliant minds at the Institute of Culinary Education, like Florian Pinel and Michael Laiskonis. So, even though the idea of a Scandinavian salmon quiche is a little off-putting, I put my faith in the human interpreters to steer me and my captive taste testers in the right direction.
Cooking with Watson: Italian grilled lobster
'Cognitive Cooking with Chef Watson' is a collaboration between IBM and the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City. Once a week, as part of an ongoing series, we'll be preparing one recipe from the book until we've made all of them. Wish us luck. I've got to say I am pretty against the idea of wrapping lobster in bacon. While, yes, bacon does tend to make everything better, I'm also a bit of a purist. I don't like butter or onions in my hamburgers, or mignonette on my oysters. These are foods meant to be enjoyed as they are. And I feel the same about lobster. It is meant to be steamed and devoured as is (or with some drawn butter and lemon if you really must). But, I have a job, and right now that job is to cook whatever Watson tell me to. So it's time to defile one of the most delicious (and expensive) sea creatures with bacon and a lot of citrus.