Have a deep view into what people are curious about.

🔗 Psychology 🔗 Disability

Working memory training is intended to improve a person's working memory. Working memory is a central intellectual faculty, linked to IQ, ageing, and mental health. It has been claimed that working memory training programs are effective means, both for treating specific medical conditions associated with working memory deficit, and for general increase in cognitive capacity among healthy neurotypical adults.

Individual studies of the topic show different, and sometime contradictory, results, and as one meta study puts it, asking the question “Does cognitive training improve intelligence?” is as inappropriate as asking “Does medicine cure disease?”, since none of them specify which particular intervention (which medicine or working memory training program) is being evaluated, for alleviating which condition is it applied (ADHD, stroke, general cognitive improvement etc.), and under what circumstances is it administered (selection criteria, adherence rate, outcome variables etc.).

In an influential metastudy from 2012, highly critical to cognitive training, analysed 23 studies with 30 group comparisons, and concluded that clinical memory training programs produce reliable short-term improvements in working memory skills in children and adults with ADHD, but also that there is no evidence that such effects can be maintained long-term without additional follow-up training. Three years later, another metastudy reached the opposite conclusion, that working memory training does have consistent and useful effects, not just on the type of working memory tests that are practiced, but also at other non-trained tasks and everyday life. Since then, a range of additional clinical experiments have been completed, with larger sample sizes, clearly defined control groups, and more uniform treatment of outcome variables. While the evidence is still far from unanimous, there are several experimental studies of working memory training that have shown beneficial effects for people with ADHD, those who have suffered stroke or traumatic brain injury, children who have undergone cancer treatment, as well as for normally developing children.

🔗 Military history 🔗 Military history/North American military history 🔗 Military history/United States military history 🔗 Palestine 🔗 Western Asia 🔗 Military history/Middle Eastern military history 🔗 Western Asia/Kuwait

The Highway of Death (Arabic: طريق الموت ṭarīq al-mawt) is a six-lane highway between Kuwait and Iraq, officially known as Highway 80. It runs from Kuwait City to the border town of Safwan in Iraq and then on to the Iraqi city of Basra. The road was used by Iraqi armored divisions for the 1990 invasion of Kuwait. It was repaired after the Gulf War and used by U.S. and British forces in the initial stages of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

During the American-led coalition offensive in the Persian Gulf War, American, Canadian, British and French aircraft and ground forces attacked retreating Iraqi military personnel attempting to leave Kuwait on the night of February 26–27, 1991, resulting in the destruction of hundreds of vehicles and the deaths of many of their occupants. Between 1,400 and 2,000 vehicles were hit or abandoned on the main Highway 80 north of Al Jahra.

The scenes of devastation on the road are some of the most recognizable images of the war, and it has been suggested that they were a factor in President George H. W. Bush's decision to declare a cessation of hostilities the next day. Many Iraqi forces successfully escaped across the Euphrates river, and the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency estimated that upwards of 70,000 to 80,000 troops from defeated divisions in Kuwait might have fled into Basra, evading capture.

🔗 Military history 🔗 Africa 🔗 United Kingdom 🔗 Military history/African military history 🔗 Africa/Tanzania 🔗 British Empire 🔗 Military history/European military history 🔗 Military history/British military history

The Anglo-Zanzibar War was a military conflict fought between the United Kingdom and the Zanzibar Sultanate on 27 August 1896. The conflict lasted between 38 and 45 minutes, marking it as the shortest recorded war in history. The immediate cause of the war was the death of the pro-British Sultan Hamad bin Thuwaini on 25 August 1896 and the subsequent succession of Sultan Khalid bin Barghash. The British authorities preferred Hamud bin Muhammed, who was more favourable to British interests, as sultan. In accordance with a treaty signed in 1886, a condition for accession to the sultanate was that the candidate obtain the permission of the British consul, and Khalid had not fulfilled this requirement. The British considered this a casus belli and sent an ultimatum to Khalid demanding that he order his forces to stand down and leave the palace. In response, Khalid called up his palace guard and barricaded himself inside the palace.

The ultimatum expired at 09:00 East Africa Time (EAT) on 27 August, by which time the British had gathered three cruisers, two gunboats, 150 marines and sailors, and 900 Zanzibaris in the harbour area. The Royal Navy contingent were under the command of Rear-Admiral Harry Rawson and the pro-Anglo Zanzibaris were commanded by Brigadier-General Lloyd Mathews of the Zanzibar army (who was also the First Minister of Zanzibar). Around 2,800 Zanzibaris defended the palace; most were recruited from the civilian population, but they also included the sultan's palace guard and several hundred of his servants and slaves. The defenders had several artillery pieces and machine guns, which were set in front of the palace sighted at the British ships. A bombardment, opened at 09:02, set the palace on fire and disabled the defending artillery. A small naval action took place, with the British sinking the Zanzibari royal yacht HHS Glasgow and two smaller vessels. Some shots were also fired ineffectually at the pro-British Zanzibari troops as they approached the palace. The flag at the palace was shot down and fire ceased at 09:40.

The sultan's forces sustained roughly 500 casualties, while only one British sailor was injured. Sultan Khalid received asylum in the German consulate before escaping to German East Africa (in the mainland part of present Tanzania). The British quickly placed Sultan Hamud in power at the head of a puppet government. The war marked the end of the Zanzibar Sultanate as a sovereign state and the start of a period of heavy British influence.

🔗 Mathematics 🔗 Physics

An amplituhedron is a geometric structure introduced in 2013 by Nima Arkani-Hamed and Jaroslav Trnka. It enables simplified calculation of particle interactions in some quantum field theories. In planar N = 4 supersymmetric Yang–Mills theory, also equivalent to the perturbative topological B model string theory in twistor space, an amplituhedron is defined as a mathematical space known as the positive Grassmannian.

Amplituhedron theory challenges the notion that spacetime locality and unitarity are necessary components of a model of particle interactions. Instead, they are treated as properties that emerge from an underlying phenomenon.

The connection between the amplituhedron and scattering amplitudes is at present a conjecture that has passed many non-trivial checks, including an understanding of how locality and unitarity arise as consequences of positivity. Research has been led by Nima Arkani-Hamed. Edward Witten described the work as "very unexpected" and said that "it is difficult to guess what will happen or what the lessons will turn out to be".

🔗 Telecommunications

The Wheatstone system was an automated telegraph system that replaced a human operator with machines capable of sending and recording Morse code at a consistent fast rate. The system included a perforator, which prepared punched paper tape called a Wheatstone slip, a transmitter that read the tape and converted the symbols into dots and dashes encoded as mark and space electric currents on the telegraph line, and a receiver at the other end of the telegraph line that printed the Morse symbols. The system was invented by Charles Wheatstone. Enhancements could be made so that it was a duplex system, able to send and receive on the same line simultaneously.

The Wheatstone slip was a paper tape that contained holes in a pattern to control the mark and space signals on the telegraph line. The paper tape was from 0.46 to 0.48 inches in width, (but the standard width is from 0.472 to 0.475 inches) and a standard thickness of 0.004 to 0.0045 inches. Olive oil coating lubricated the punch process. There were three rows of holes. The middle row forms a rack so that a star wheel can move the paper forward. Every used position on the tape has a middle hole punched. The top hole indicates when to turn on the mark signal on the line, and the bottom hole says to turn off the mark signal. Each vertical column represents a time interval in the Morse code, including the spacing between the holes. The holes are spaced 0.1 inches apart. A column of three holes turns on the mark at the beginning of the interval, and turns it off at the end making a dot. If there is a top hole without a bottom, and then the next column has a bottom without a top hole, mark is on for three intervals, and a dash is represented. If there is only a centre hole, then nothing changes, and this would normally be used to put in space between letters and words.

The Wheatstone perforator was a manually operated hole punch machine to produce Wheatstone slips. It had three buttons (or keys) labelled "A", "A1" and "A2". "A" punched the pattern for dot, "A1" punched the pattern for space, and "A2" punched the dash pattern in two columns. The keys were so difficult to press that fist-held rubber-tipped mallets were used to depress them and operate the punches. Using this, invalid combinations of holes could not be produced. The blank paper tape was fed in from the right over a roller and came out the left side. It was oriented in a vertical plane. The paper punches were labelled with numbers: 1 for the top hole of the dot, 2 for the sprocket hole for dot, and 3 for the bottom hole for dot. When a dash was punched, extra hole punches to the right punched a centre hole with number 4 and a bottom hole with number 5. The perforator was introduced in 1867. It enabled transmission speeds on a telegraph line to increase to 70 words per minute. The very first message ever punched onto a tape was "SOS EIOS". The manual perforator was subsequently replaced by keyboard perforators like the Gell keyboard perforator or Kleinschmidt keyboard perforator.

Each of the keys had a spring to restore its position after pressing. Each key moved a corresponding lever underneath the instrument. The other end of the levers protruded up into the back of the mechanism. Each punch rod also had a spring to put it back in place after punching a hole. For space and dot keying (A or A1) the star wheel was only allowed to turn one position by a pawl, and the paper tape only moved forward one position. However, when key A2 was hit, the corresponding lever B2 raised a bar (h) which allowed another lever attached to the pawl to move further back when the star wheel rotated, and the wheel could turn two positions, for a dash. The distance the paper tape moved for each position was determined by how far lever k moved, and its range of movement had to be set by adjusting screws i and t. A flat spring g stored energy from the punch to move the paper. The force of the spring was determined by adjusting screws n and n'. A guide roller (r) with a groove was pressed by an adjustable spring to press the pawl against the star wheel. The star wheel was on a frame with a piece sticking out the left hand side as a lever. When the operator wanted to insert paper tape, this lever was pulled, and the star wheel retracted from the paper.

The Wheatstone transmitter read a paper tape (Wheatstone slip) and converted the dot pattern into mark and space symbols on the telegraph line. It worked by two rods alternately rising up to sample the holes in the tape. First of all the top hole was probed, and if the rod could go through, it moved a compound lever that connected the mark signal to the line. With no hole the lever remained unmoved. Next the top hole rod dropped and the bottom hole rod checked whether there was a bottom hole in the tape. If there was, the compound lever was moved back to connect the space signal on the line. If there was no hole, the compound lever was left alone as it was. An extra switch enabled the transmitter to be bypassed so that a Morse key could be used instead.

The Wheatstone receiver converted the signal on the telegraph line to an inked pattern on a paper strip. An electromagnet electrically connected to the telegraph line moved an inking wheel to press against the paper. A clockwork mechanism advanced the paper tape, and turned the inking wheel, and an ink supply wheel. The paper advance speed could be adjusted between 7 and 60 feet per minute. Power to the clockwork had three sources: it could be a coiled spring, a weight, or an electric motor. Paper spools were stored in drawers beneath the reader to allow quick change when one was exhausted. The ink supply wheel turned in an inkwell. The machine was started and stopped by use of a lever. In electrical characteristics, the electromagnet had two windings, each of 100 ohms resistance. These could be connected in parallel or series to achieve a 50 or 200 ohm resistance, to better match the telegraph line. Other maintenance that might have been required was cleaning of the marker and supply wheels, adjusting the armature-coil spacing to avoid a marking or spacing bias, and cleaning the sounding tongue and contact points.

The Wheatstone telegram consisted of strips of paper tape with the Morse code printed on it, pasted on a form. The telegram would later be retyped to make a final presentable message for the recipient.

🔗 Technology 🔗 Telecommunications

The telautograph, an analog precursor to the modern fax machine, transmits electrical impulses recorded by potentiometers at the sending station to servomechanisms attached to a pen at the receiving station, thus reproducing at the receiving station a drawing or signature made by the sender. It was the first such device to transmit drawings to a stationary sheet of paper; previous inventions in Europe had used rotating drums to make such transmissions.

The telautograph's invention is attributed to Elisha Gray, who patented it on July 31, 1888. Gray's patent stated that the telautograph would allow "one to transmit his own handwriting to a distant point over a two-wire circuit." It was the first facsimile machine in which the stylus was controlled by horizontal and vertical bars. The telautograph was first publicly exhibited at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition held in Chicago.

While the patent schema's geometry implies vertical and horizontal coordinates, systems used in the 20th Century (and presumably before) had a different coordinate scheme, based on transmitting two angles.

In an 1888 interview in The Manufacturer & Builder (Vol. 24: No. 4: pages 85–86) Gray made this statement:

By my invention you can sit down in your office in Chicago, take a pencil in your hand, write a message to me, and as your pencil moves, a pencil here in my laboratory moves simultaneously, and forms the same letters and words in the same way. What you write in Chicago is instantly reproduced here in fac-simile. You may write in any language, use a code or cipher, no matter, a fac-simile is produced here. If you want to draw a picture it is the same, the picture is reproduced here. The artist of your newspaper can, by this device, telegraph his pictures of a railway wreck or other occurrences just as a reporter telegraphs his description in words.

By the end of the 19th century, the telautograph was modified by Foster Ritchie. Calling it the telewriter, Ritchie's version of the telautograph could be operated using a telephone line for simultaneous copying and speaking.

The telautograph became very popular for the transmission of signatures over a distance, and in banks and large hospitals to ensure that doctors' orders and patient information were transmitted quickly and accurately. Teleautograph systems were installed in a number of major railroad stations to relay hand-written reports of train movements from the interlocking tower to various parts of the station. The teleautograph network in Grand Central Terminal included a public display in the main concourse into the 1960s; a similar setup in Chicago Union Station remained in operation into the 1970s.

A Telautograph was used in 1911 to warn workers on the 10th floor about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire that had broken out two floors below. An example of a Telautograph machine writing script can be seen in the 1956 movie Earth vs the Flying Saucers as the output device for the mechanical translator.

Telautograph Corporation changed its name several times. In 1971, it was acquired by Arden/Mayfair. In 1993, Danka Industries purchased the company and renamed it Danka/Omnifax. In 1999, Xerox corporation purchased the company and called it the Omnifax division, which has since been absorbed by the corporation.

🔗 Chemicals

Pentaborane(9) is an inorganic compound with the formula B₅H₉. It is one of the most common boron hydride clusters, although it is a highly reactive compound. Because of its high reactivity with oxygen, it was once evaluated as rocket or jet fuel. Like many of the smaller boron hydrides, pentaborane is colourless, diamagnetic, and volatile. It is related to pentaborane(11) (B₅H₁₁).

🔗 London 🔗 Holidays 🔗 Christianity 🔗 River Thames 🔗 Christianity/Christmas

The River Thames frost fairs were held on the tideway of the River Thames in London, England in some winters, starting at least as early as the late 7th century all the way until the early 19th century. Most were held between the early 17th and early 19th centuries during the period known as the Little Ice Age, when the river froze over most frequently. During that time the British winter was more severe than it is now, and the river was wider and slower, further impeded by the medieval Old London Bridge.

Even at its peak, in the mid-17th century, the Thames in London froze less often than modern legend sometimes suggests, never exceeding about one year in ten except for four winters between 1649 and 1666. From 1400 until the removal of the medieval London Bridge in 1835, there were 24 winters in which the Thames was recorded to have frozen over at London; if "more or less frozen over" years (in parentheses) are included, the number is 26: 1408, 1435, 1506, 1514, 1537, 1565, 1595, 1608, 1621, 1635, 1649, 1655, 1663, 1666, 1677, 1684, 1695, 1709, 1716, 1740, (1768), 1776, (1785), 1788, 1795, and 1814. Of the 24, the numbers in each century were: 15th two, 16th five, 17th ten, 18th six, 19th one. The Thames freezes over more often upstream, beyond the reach of the tide, especially above the weirs, of which Teddington Lock is the lowest. The last great freeze of the higher Thames was in 1962–63.

Frost fairs were a rare event even in the coldest parts of the Little Ice Age. Some of the recorded frost fairs were in 695, 1608, 1683-4, 1716, 1739–40, 1789, and 1814. Recreational cold weather winter events were far more common elsewhere in Europe, for example in the Netherlands. These events in other countries as well as the winter festivals and carnivals around the world in present times can also be considered frost fairs. However, very few of them have actually used that title.

During the Great Frost of 1683–84, the severest frost recorded in England, the Thames was completely frozen for two months, with the ice reaching a thickness of 11 inches (28 cm) in London. Solid ice was reported extending for miles off the coasts of the southern North Sea (England, France and the Low Countries), causing severe problems for shipping and preventing the use of many harbours.

🔗 Human rights 🔗 China 🔗 Islam 🔗 Correction and Detention Facilities

The Xinjiang re-education camps, officially called Vocational Education and Training Centers by the government of the People's Republic of China, are internment camps that have been operated by the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region government for the purpose of indoctrinating Uyghurs since 2017 as part of a "people's war on terror" announced in 2014. The camps were established under General Secretary Xi Jinping's administration and led by party secretary, Chen Quanguo. These camps are reportedly operated outside the legal system; many Uyghurs have reportedly been interned without trial and no charges have been levied against them. Local authorities are reportedly holding hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs in these camps as well as other ethnic minority groups, for the stated purpose of countering extremism and terrorism and promoting sinicization.

As of 2018, it was estimated that the Chinese authorities may have detained hundreds of thousands, perhaps a million, Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and other ethnic Turkic Muslims, Christians as well as some foreign citizens such as Kazakhstanis, who are being held in these secretive internment camps which are located throughout the region. In May 2018, Randall Schriver of the United States Department of Defense claimed that "at least a million but likely closer to three million citizens" were imprisoned in detention centers in a strong condemnation of the "concentration camps". In August 2018, a United Nations human rights panel said that it had received many credible reports that 1 million ethnic Uyghurs in China have been held in "re-education camps". There have also been multiple reports from media, politicians and researchers comparing the camps to the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

In 2019, the United Nations ambassadors from 22 nations, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom signed a letter condemning China's mass detention of the Uyghurs and other minority groups, urging the Chinese government to close the camps. Conversely, a joint statement was signed by 37 states commending China's counter-terrorism program in Xinjiang, including Algeria, the DR Congo, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, North Korea, Egypt, Nigeria, the Philippines and Sudan.

🔗 Spaceflight 🔗 Physics 🔗 Science Fiction

A black hole starship is a theoretical idea for enabling interstellar travel by propelling a starship by using a black hole as the energy source. The concept was first discussed in science fiction, notably in the book Imperial Earth by Arthur C. Clarke, and in the work of Charles Sheffield, in which energy extracted from a Kerr-Newman black hole is described as powering the rocket engines in the story "Killing Vector" (1978).

In a more detailed analysis, a proposal to create an artificial black hole and using a parabolic reflector to reflect its Hawking radiation was discussed in 2009 by Louis Crane and Shawn Westmoreland. Their conclusion was that it was on the edge of possibility, but that quantum gravity effects that are presently unknown will either make it easier, or make it impossible. Similar concepts were also sketched out by Bolonkin.