EdEarl

The Consensus Project says they have examined 3,896 peer reviewed papers with 97% consensus that "Global warming is happening, and we are the cause."

pears, Your post #11 reminds me of thoughts, "Why am I," that I had when younger, which could not be answered satisfactorily, and which eventually faded from consciousness, until now. They are packed away with other "why" questions, such as, "Why does the Universe exist," that also could not be answered satisfactorily. If one believes in a scientific explanation, such as there is an infinite Multiverse, of which our Universe is one part, that our universe banged into existence from random brane fluctuations, and believe in spontaneous abiogenesis and evolution, then the answer to these why questions is, "Shit happens." On the other hand, if you believe in a creator, then, "God (or a god) willed it." Otherwise, AFAIK they are open questions.

I believe people do have some choices in their lives, i.e., free will, which is an argument against Solipsism, because with a free will and Solipsism the world I would make the world a nicer place. Although, I might be having a nightmare, and when I wake up, the world will be a nicer place.

I think that is a currently active topic, but I have done no personal research in that area. You should be able to find a few papers on the subject in an hour or two if it is currently active. An online search should be enough at this point, because you should be able to get a good idea of whether a paper is relevant or not from the abstract.

Have a happy Friday. It's about 13 mins. Jump into the middle if you don't want to watch it all.

I'm not sure what you mean by PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION, and even if I understood I'm not sure I could answer the question without doing the research. There are a few eternal problems in software engineering, for example software is always released with bugs, and no one knows how to eliminate every bug, and there are always more projects to do than staff to do them. Then, there are technology related problems, for example putting computers in phones created a desire to have more apps, but phones do not have the power or performance to run some apps; thus, cloud computing was developed with thin clients running on phones and applications running in the cloud. It is client-server computing, with a twist. Then, as you dig deeper into any given technology, there are always things that can be solved with a computer and software, and things that cannot. Sometimes, hardware is insufficient, and sometimes software. Research papers often have a conclusion that lists issues that are solved and open issues that need additional research. Other papers may have solutions to issues listed in one paper. I think, your task in identifying problems is to find the ones that have not been solved in any paper on whatever subject you choose. But, if you are unsure, ask your instructor.

I am diabetic, and think you can have fruit, just in moderation, and you should be able to prevent glucose spikes by eating only a little fruit at a time, say 1/4 apple and wait an hour for the next 1/4. Use your monitor to determine how much and when.

If I Recall Correctly http://io9.com/5861630/fairy-wasps-shrink-to-the-size-of-amoeba-by-sacrificing-their-neurons

The paper is in Nature. I suppose some of you have heard of this as a theoretical possibility; I had not, and am dumfounded.

Once they teach it to pick and pickle peppers, it can be named Peter Piper. Devices such as these are needed because farm labor is in some places not affordable or not available, and robots should eventually make more fruits and vegetables available at affordable prices. Eventually, a Peter Piper Personal can care for a home owner's garden.

TYVM. Odd, I don't get a link to electric universe, but the article you cite is correct.

IIRC at least some species of fairyfly have neurons without a nucleus.

Easy things are the ones you already know. Since you are the one who knows what you know, you are the one to decide what that topic will be. On the other hand, a thesis is a learning project, and to learn the most you must challenge yourself to learn new things. IMO your best choice is something you want to know about and find interesting, which means you will feel joy when learning instead of pain. You chose software engineering, operating systems. Further divisions are mobile computing, cloud computing, software for wearable computers, which can be device drivers, such as using ones hands instead of a mouse for pointing, and applications instead of operating systems, such as software for bionic devices. You can find your topic by searching Wikipedia for topics you know and like and following links to things that interest you to find new topics. Just as I did above. As you find research papers, don't read them for full understanding at first, read the abstract and conclusions. You should be able to find many more papers than you want to include in your thesis. From the many, select a few that focus on an idea. Then, read the ones you select completely. You may need to discard some and select a few more. From the ones you select, title your paper and write your thesis.

I know that mycelium is grown in forms (molds) to make various shapes for use as packing material for furniture (or whatever); it is an alternative to Styrofoam. Perhaps a similar technology can be developed to grow wooden roots in forms (molds), by putting root growth enzyme, nutrients, and ground roots into a form and letting them grow for a while (weeks?) If it works, one might grow a chassis and other structural components from wood. Or, perhaps one could grow connective joints between bamboo parts. Mycelium might be used for body parts. US20110268980 A1 is a patent application for the the mycelium process. You might make drive train parts from something like ironwood, but that is not IMO a sustainable material for this application, and nothing currently beats steel for durability. I hope you have an idea for the engine, because nothing AFAIK that grows can withstand the temperatures and mechanical torture of cylinders, pistons and crankshaft.

The obvious question is, "What about this year?" I hope everyone gets the grants they need to continue their work.

I don't know the answer, and do not know how to calculate it. I think it would depend on a number of factors, including other elements in the star and its size. Maybe no one knows how to make such calculations; the interior of a star is complex. Recently the way the sun's core works has been discovered.

There are dry power inhalers. I assume caffeine could be powdered and inhaled in that manner.

The larger the star, the faster it turns H into He, He into ... into Fe. Not all stars create iron, see Wikipedia, Table: "Core collapse scenarios by mass and metallicity," and Paragraph Post-main sequence. In fiction, you might postulate that a small star began its life with much iron from the beginning, assuming another star exploded and left iron debris that was accreted by the newer star. However, IDK if that would affect the minimum mass of such a star as it begins fusing H and He into heavier elements.

Courtesy Science is Awesome via Facebook

True. A day-night cycle would be a year long. There would be no place where life could survive all the time, but they might migrate to survive. Although, in the deep ocean, for example near black smokers life would probably survive. Since the Moon prevents this condition, can we assume no Moon. In this case, with the Sun being positioned for long periods on one spot (e.g., Antarctica), might the Earth's core shift towards that pole and cause the Earth to lock gravitationally with the Sun, making one side point toward the Sun? If it did not lock, then the Earths surface might become much more geologically active.

If the spin of the Earth continued to be along the Arctic-Antarctic line, for example with the Antarctic pointing towards the Sun, then the Northern hemisphere would freeze and be in perpetual darkness, and the Southern hemisphere would bake and be in perpetual daylight. Jet streams would carry hot air towards the Equator and low altitude cold winds would carry air towards Antarctic. The winds would spiral because of the Earths rotation. Winds in the north would have similar patterns, except warm jet streams would flow towards the North pole and low altitude cold winds towards the equator. Thermohaline circulation would be from Antarctica to the equator with warm water and cold water from the equator towards Antarctica. Most of life on Earth would die out, but there would be a zone somewhere between Antarctica and the Equator where life would survive.

At least some parts of quantum computers may use photons.

IMO, you present adequate determinism and its alternative in an idealistic way as if we can live one or the other, which we cannot. Moreover, you discount the randomness of quantum physics as not relevant, which it is not. Our bodies are partly made of carbon 14, which is radioactive; it decays into nitrogen at some random time. When that happens inside us a molecule containing the 14C becomes a different molecule; if that molecule is in our brain, then it can have an effect on our thought process. In most cases it may be insignificant, but sometimes the Butterfly Effect means that molecule will make a big difference in us. For example, if that decay results in a brain tumor, we may do almost anything (Texas Tower Shooting). Sentencing and parole are not entirely rational processes. The only reason we know Charles Whitman had a brain tumor, is that he was shot before being apprehended. If he had been captured alive, more than likely he would have been charged, tried, and convicted of multiple murders and sentenced to death. Moreover, people become emotional about punishment for crimes, regardless of philosophical position of the government or themselves. It takes a devout Christian (any religion) to turn the other cheek when their daughter is raped or their son is murdered; most want revenge/justice. I could make similar arguments about deserving, but will not bore everyone. IMO life is a combination of things that are inevitable and some in which our decisions make a difference. It is not a choice when we come to a fork in the road, you see that left a bridge is out and right is a nice paved highway. Only decisions when we cannot see ahead may make any difference whether we choose one or another, and some of those will have the same outcome regardless of choice.

Heat is another major problem that may limit making chips with many more cores than now exist. The Pentium instruction set and architecture uses many transistors that generate much heat, which require heat sinks and fans on the CPU chip. Active cooling with thermoelectric cooling might be used, or maybe nanotube or graphene transistors that can run on less than a nano watt of power may be an alternative. Otherwise, 64+ core chips are unlikely. While thermoelectric cooling cannot increase the speed of transistors much, nanotube and graphene transistors may increase transistor speed. I've seen estimates of 100x speed improvement. However, manufacturing common microchips using graphene or nanotube transistors cannot be done yet, and perhaps never. Time will tell. If one uses extreme cooling, enough to make superconductors, then transistors become faster and lower power. Of course, the equipment to super cool a computer will probably not be small enough for a laptop. Currently software does not take full advantage of multiple cores. My laptop has four cores and can process eight simultaneous threads, but few programs can use more than one thread at a time. Thus, my CPU would sit idle most of the time, except I downloaded BONIC Manager from Berkely.edu and run some programs for scientific research on my otherwise idle computer, e.g., SETI at Home, and climate models. For a single program to take advantage of multiple cores really requires compilers to be modified, which probably is being done. However, additional research is also needed to identify methods for making use of multiple cores. Technically this is not on topic, but saleha is looking for a topic and optical computing does not seem to be a good one. Perhaps s/he can get some ideas from us for another topic.

Yes Karnaugh maps are commonly used to help with Boolean equations.