This Graphic Shows How Fast A Rocket Must Go To Leave Every Planet

Human-robot disaster response team successfully deploy robots in earthquake damaged monuments | Robohub

Human-robot disaster response team successfully deploy robots in earthquake damaged monuments

After the devastating earthquake in Amatrice, Italy, on August 24th, the Vigili del Fuoco (Italian fire brigade) requested assistance from the TRADR (Long-Term Human-Robot Teaming for Robot-Assisted Disaster Response) project (EU FP7 framework, grant No. 60963). TRADR deployed two Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) and three Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to assist the post-earthquake response in Amatrice.

The task was to use robots to provide 3D textured models of two churches, San Francesco and Sant’ Agostino, national heritage monuments from the XIVth century. Both were in a state of partial collapse and in need of shoring to prevent potential further destruction. The models should serve to plan the shoring operations and to assess the state of various objects of cultural value inside the churches, such as valuable frescos.

The UGVs successfully entered the San Francesco church, teleoperated entirely out of line of sight and partially in collaboration. For part of the mission, one UGV provided a view of the other one to enable maneuvering in very constrained space with low connection bandwidth. One of the UGVs operated in the church continuously for four hours. A UAV was also present for a short time in parallel and provided additional views of the UGVs.

Also for ballroom! It’s fine for collegiate comps, but I’d love to compete at other ones as well

Petition to Eliminate Gender Discrimination in West Coast Swing Competitions

We, the undersigned, respectfully request that all event directors, clubs, and national organizations including, but not limited to, NASDE and the WSDC, eliminate gender discrimination in all local, national, and international West Coast Swing dance competitions and acknowledge points and placements awarded to competitors regardless of gender. Kelly Casanova, WSDC# 124

Please sign and share! Because everyone should be able to have their rightfully earned points count no matter what they choose to identify as. Also, fuck institutionalized heteronormativity.

The Ghetto of Venice

Beautiful timelapse of photosynthesis seen from space

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Dolce Far Niente in Dance Sport - Dance Comp Review

New Post has been published on http://dancecompreview.com/dolce-far-niente-dance-sport/

Dolce Far Niente in Dance Sport

It wasn’t that long ago, when I set up a new training schedule for my partner and I: a plan with all the goals, the training sessions and the topics we wanted to improve. To be honest, I was proud of what I created, because it was so thought through along with a lot of things finally falling into place. Well, at least these were my thoughts – until I brought the plan for discussion to a private lesson with our coach…

I am so glad that I had a professional eye to look over this! When he saw the schedule, he nodded and then said: “Good work so far, but there is one crucial thing missing.” It was like a wakeup call when he told me: “I see everything in this plan, except for the time when you do nothing at all”. That was it! I totally forgot to plan the time for regeneration: one of the key components when it comes to successful training.

In a (dance)-society that is (mostly) driven by the words higher, faster, stronger, we all tend to forget that we only get better in the time we leave our bodies to regenerate. This doesn’t mean of course that we will get better by doing nothing at all. It’s all about doing nothing AFTER we have been working hard. For instance, if we want to make our muscles more powerful, they first have to be exhausted and then they need time to rebuild to an even stronger version. But also our brain needs downtime to process new information. If we learn something new, it’s first saved in the short-term memory and then by processing the information, it will probably be stored in the long-term memory. And as we all know, in sleep our brain consolidates memories best.

Active work demands for active recovery from the physical and mental demands, in order to improve what we are doing. This goes for nearly all aspects in life and also perfectly for dancing. What do I mean by “active recovery”? Here is a quick and personal list:

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Low Impact Activities

It’s always great to go on a short, easy 15-minute-walk. You can also do a really low impact Yoga session or stretch a little bit. Everything that makes you feel calm, relaxed and refueled. But don’t overdo it! Really give your body a rest!

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Nutrition

Of course and as always, what you put into your body is crucial. A balanced nutrition is key to your healthy body as well as active recovery. Try to really control the amounts and also the quality of food you are taking in, and your exhausted muscles will thank you. Not to mention, your concentration on the next lesson will be so much better. One really important tip to keep in mind is, that starving your body (in case you are trying to lose weight or you’ve been telling yourself that “you don’t have time to eat”) is not good for your recovery at all. It will stress your system even more and will not let your body improve.

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Sleep

According to the National Sleep Foundation, Serena Williams, a really successful tennis player, enjoys to go to bed at 7pm in order to get enough sleep. I am not telling you, that this would also work for you, but it is worth giving a thought. I used her example to really emphasize on how important sleeping is, even more for people who are physically active. It doesn’t matter if you consider yourself as a serious athlete/artist, or if you are just in it for fun, but getting the right amount of sleep is decisive to your performance and also to your improvement. Adults between the age 18 and 64 need between 6 and 11 hours, while 7-9 hours of sleep are recommended. I understand that this is a lot of time, but, in my opinion, sleeping is not enough of a priority anymore. Find yourself a sleeping schedule and also keep it on the weekends. Turn off electronics, find your ideal light, sound and temperatures in your bedroom and give your system a chance to reboot.

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Let go of the “Coulda Woulda Shoulda”

If you now come to the conclusion that some downtime for yourself is what you need, you also have to let go of all the Rumba Walks you could have practiced in that time. Really! Focus on relaxing, recovering and refueling your energy! And, stop overthinking all the things you could’ve, should’ve or would’ve been able to do then. Just enjoy the famous Dolce Far Niente. And, afterwards – Dance on, even better than before!

Author: Sophia Wedel Photography: Maggiore Fotografico Exclusively for Dance Comp Review

Chlorosulfonation of an imidazole derivative with chlorosulfonic acid.

Why is this a special thing? Chlorosulfonic acid reacts with water explosively forming sulfuric acid and hydrogen chloride. So when I added 200 g of a compound to 500 cm3 of chlorosulfonic acid, a highly exothermic reaction happened and immediately and a highly acidic fog formed in the flask as the reactants contacted each other.

Important note when working with chlorosulfonic acid: NEVER WASH ANYTHING WITH WATER WHAT CONTAINS A RANDOM LIQUID, since if its chlorosulfonic acid, it could blow a highly acidic solution on your labcoat/hands/face. And always pour chlorosulfonic acid and reaction mixtures that contain this chemical on large excess of cracked ice to avoid serious problems.

P.S.: always wear proper PPE.

The stereoscope was the VR headset of the 19th century.

British scientist Charles Wheatstone developed the first stereoscope in 1838, using side-by-side images and prismatic lenses. By showing the subject from two slightly different angles, the viewer’s brain is tricked into perceiving depth and being immersed in the scene.

This stereoscope was manufactured around 1900 by Brevetés Paris and is in our @cooperhewitt, which has a variety of stereoscope slides in its collection, including depictions of historical moments and camels at the zoo in London.

Superhenge?

Last year, an international team of scientists mapping the underground landscape surrounding Stonehenge announced that they had located a massive stone monument that dwarfed its ancient neighbor. When archaeologists started excavating “Superhenge” earlier this month, however, they found something completely different.

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The Secret to Small Drone Obstacle Avoidance Is to Just Crash Into Stuff

Small drones bumble through obstacles just like bees

Roboticists are putting a tremendous amount of time and effort into finding the right combination of sensors and algorithms that will keep their drones from smashing into things. It’s a very difficult problem: With a few exceptions, you’ve got small platforms that move fast and don’t have the payload capability for the kind of sensors or computers that you really need to do real-time avoidance of things like trees or powerlines. And without obstacle avoidance, how will we ever have drones that can deliver new athletic socks to our doorstep in 30 minutes or less?

At the University of Pennsylvania’s GRASP Lab, where they’ve been working very very hard at getting quadrotors to fly through windows without running into them, Yash Mulgaonkar, Luis Guerrero-Bonilla, Anurag Makineni, and Professor Vijay Kumar have come up with what seems to be a much simpler solution for navigation and obstacle avoidance with swarms of small aerial robots: Give them a roll cage, and just let them run into whatever is in their way. Seriously, it’ll be fine!

This kind of “it’ll be fine” philosophy is what you find in most small flying insects, like bees: They don’t worry all that much about bumbling into stuff, or each other, they just kind of shrug it off and keep on going. Or, if you’re a roboticist, you might say something like, “The penalty due to collisions is small at these scales and sensors and controllers are not precise enough to guarantee collision free trajectories,” so stop trying to solve the collision problem, and just focus on not completely trashing yourself when you hit something. (Swiss startup Flyability was among the first to demonstrate the benefits of collision robustness by equipping a regular-size drone with a gimballed protective cage and flying through forests and ice caves.)

Most of that is the same in the US, though we have slightly different divisions, and more dances because of the Arthur Murray-standardized American Style. I’m just a collegiate Silver Standard dancer, though someone please correct me if I’m off, and I’ll barely mention Open.

Dance Styles: International Standard (Waltz, Tango, Foxtrot, Quickstep, Viennese Waltz), International Latin (Cha cha, Rumba, Samba, Jive, Paso Doble), American Smooth (Waltz, Tango, Foxtrot, Viennese), and American Rhythm (Cha cha, Rumba, Swing, Mambo, Bolero). The biggest difference between Standard and Smooth is that the couple can break frame in Smooth.

Divisions: There’s really two sets of divisions: Syllabus and Open. Syllabus divisions have specific figures they can do at their level, and go Newcomer, Bronze, Silver, Gold (or Newcomer, Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced). Open has less restrictions on figures, essentially follows Syllabus once Gold starts to get boring, and goes Novice, Pre-Champ, Champ. USADance has also created Same-Sex divisions separated by gender of pairing and Open vs. Syllabus (these divisions would have Newcomer couples compete against Gold-level couples), but in collegiate competitions these couples are not separated out from the rest. For the most part the next division is achieved by points, but Newcomer at all competitions and Bronze at some collegiate competitions are also determined by time. 

The number of dances you compete per style increases as you ascend levels as dances become paired, though some like Viennese Waltz and Paso Doble are typically separated out on their own. Same-Sex dances are currently not paired.

Costumes are pretty much the same, though there isn’t a standard for non-traditional dance roles. I’ve seen lady leaders do black tops and leotards with either pants or skirts, and male follows typically follow leader costume rules.

Ballroom

@carmodance for your anon and for other dance fans who knows nothing about ballroom

I saw a lot of people asking about ballroom, so I’ll try to explain few things (it’s gonna be long).

I’m from Russia and I didn’t compete last 4 years, so rules maybe slightly different. Also I probably forgot a lot of things. And my english isn’t the best.

Read it all under the cut

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