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discuss Science & Technology news & discussion

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CraigD

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Post and discuss interesting articles & videos about science and technology.

You don't need to be an expert - just interested in the wonders of modern science, technology, and the history of these fields.

Please keep it rational, and post articles from reputable sources.
Try not to editorialise headlines and keep the copy to just a paragraph with a link to the original source. When quoting excerpts from articles, I think the best method is to italicise the copy, and include a link to the source.

Have some fun with your comments and discussions... just keep the sources legitimate.

Other threads:
The Break Room has a number of other popular threads, so there is no need to post material here that is better suited to these other threads:

- Covid19-Coronavirus updates and news
- Conspiracy Thread Free For All
- The *religious* discussion thread


Please enjoy!
 
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Jumping From Space! - Red Bull Space Dive - BBC


"I'm going home now"
The 4-minutes of the space to earth jump.
 
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How We Are Going to the Moon [NASA]

While Apollo placed the first steps on the Moon, Artemis opens the door for humanity to sustainably work and live on another world for the first time. Using the lunar surface as a proving ground for living on Mars, this next chapter in exploration will forever establish our presence in the stars. We are returning to the Moon – to stay – and this is how we are going!

 
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To survive asteroid impact, algae learned to hunt

Tiny, seemingly harmless ocean plants survived the darkness of the asteroid strike that killed the dinosaurs by learning a ghoulish behavior — eating other living creatures.

A team of scientists, including researchers at UC Riverside, wanted to understand how these algae managed to thrive while the mass extinction rippled throughout the rest of the global food chain.

Researchers found that once the post-asteroid darkness cleared, these mixotrophic algae expanded from coastal shelf areas into the open ocean where they became a dominant life form for the next million years, helping to quickly rebuild the food chain. It also helped that larger creatures who would normally feed on these algae were initially absent in the post-extinction oceans.

https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/44/eabc9123
 
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No need for an asteroid impact, or any impact at all...EMP burst radius:

EMP-Blast-Radius-TP-2-1.png
 
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Filming the Speed of Light at 10 Trillion FPS

 
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What's the Deepest Hole We Can Possibly Dig?

 
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How The Penrose Singularity Theorem Predicts The End of Space Time

 
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Chip wars: The US v China

A big source of tension between the US and China at the moment is technology. And one very small component is now at the centre of this battle for global dominance. BBC Asia business correspondent Karishma Vaswani explains.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/business-54746208
 
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'They give me the willies': scientist who vacuumed murder hornets braces for fight


The eradication of the first nest of Asian giant hornets on US soil somewhat resembled a science fiction depiction of an alien landing site. A crew of government specialists in white, astronaut-like protective suits descended upon the hornet nexus to vanquish it with a futuristic-looking vacuum cleaner, to the relief of onlookers.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/othe...ts-braces-for-fight/ar-BB1az1km?ocid=msedgntp

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1st 'murder hornet' nest in US found and destroyed

Entomologists wore protective gear to protect themselves from the wasps' excruciating stings.

https://www.livescience.com/first-us-murder-hornet-nest-destroyed.html

 
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A 5-story building in Shanghai 'walks' to a new location

An 85-year-old primary school has been lifted off the ground -- in its entirety -- and relocated using new technology dubbed the "walking machine."

In the city's latest effort to preserve historic structures, engineers attached nearly 200 mobile supports under the five-story building, according to Lan Wuji, chief technical supervisor of the project.

The supports act like robotic legs. They're split into two groups which alternately rise up and down, imitating the human stride. Attached sensors help control how the building moves forward, said Lan, whose company Shanghai Evolution Shift developed the new technology in 2018.


 
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The universe teems with weird black holes, gravitational wave hunters find

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/202...d-black-holes-gravitational-wave-hunters-find

"Less than 5 years ago, physicists rocked the scientific world when they first spotted gravitational waves—fleeting ripples in space and time—set off when two gargantuan black holes billions of light-years away swirled into each other. Since then, scientists have detected a scad of similar events, mostly reported event by event. Today, however, researchers with a global network of gravitational wave detectors announced the first major statistical analyses of their data so far, 50 events in all."

LIGO and Virgo’s gravitational wave tally more than quadrupled in six months

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ligo-virgo-gravitational-wave-quadruple-black-hole

"Over a six-month period, scientists captured a bounty of 39 sets of gravitational waves. The waves, which stretch and squeeze the fabric of spacetime, were caused by violent events such as the melding of two black holes into one.

The haul was reported by scientists with the LIGO and Virgo experiments in several studies posted October 28 on a collaboration website and at arXiv.org. The addition brings the tally of known gravitational wave events to 50."
 
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How octopuses ‘taste’ things by touching

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/octopus-taste-touch-arm-suckers

"Each of these eight supple yet powerful limbs can explore the seafloor in search of prey, snatching crabs from hiding spots without direction from the octopus’ brain. But how each arm can tell what it’s grasping has remained a mystery.

Now, researchers have identified specialized cells not seen in other animals that allow octopuses to “taste” with their arms. Embedded in the suckers, these cells enable the arms to do double duty of touch and taste by detecting chemicals produced by many aquatic creatures."
 
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How octopuses ‘taste’ things by touching

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/octopus-taste-touch-arm-suckers

"Each of these eight supple yet powerful limbs can explore the seafloor in search of prey, snatching crabs from hiding spots without direction from the octopus’ brain. But how each arm can tell what it’s grasping has remained a mystery.

Now, researchers have identified specialized cells not seen in other animals that allow octopuses to “taste” with their arms. Embedded in the suckers, these cells enable the arms to do double duty of touch and taste by detecting chemicals produced by many aquatic creatures."

Thanks @Sutuk, that's very interesting! I did a bit of a read-up on our eight-armed friends, and came across this short animation...

Why the octopus brain is so extraordinary

Octopuses have the ability to solve puzzles, learn through observation, and even use tools – just like humans. But what makes octopus intelligence so amazing is that it comes from a biological structure completely different from ours.


 
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Thanks @Sutuk, that's very interesting! I did a bit of a read-up on our eight-armed friends, and came across this short animation...

Why the octopus brain is so extraordinary

Octopuses have the ability to solve puzzles, learn through observation, and even use tools – just like humans. But what makes octopus intelligence so amazing is that it comes from a biological structure completely different from ours.



One very interesting thing about Octopuses is that they have 60% of their neurons located on their 8 arms.
"Instead of being concentrated in the brain, two-thirds of the nerve cells in an octopus are distributed among the arms, allowing the flexible appendages to operate semi-independently".

They are without doubt the most intelligent invertebrates. And I am sure that they have developed their intelligence thanks to their ability to handle things with their super versatile 8 arms, in the same way that humans have developed our intelligence thanks to our free and versatile hands.
 
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One very interesting thing about Octopuses is that they have 60% of their neurons located on their 8 arms.
"Instead of being concentrated in the brain, two-thirds of the nerve cells in an octopus are distributed among the arms, allowing the flexible appendages to operate semi-independently".

They are without doubt the most intelligent invertebrates. And I am sure that they have developed their intelligence thanks to their ability to handle things with their super versatile 8 arms, in the same way that humans have developed our intelligence thanks to our free and versatile hands.

As a species, humans have developed in many ways, but our intelligence can also be our handicap. Just as it depends on the motivation. I question: are we as human beings, the masters of our domain, simply studying and creating systems to unravel the mysteries of phenomenon - the Earth and beyond - to advance our own species? Is science a human construct apart from nature? Then what is earth science?

Intelligence is not the same as critical thinking - the difference matters.
 
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Intelligence is not the same as critical thinking - the difference matters.
The more intelligence, the more critical thinking. It's very easy to manage a crowd full of ignorants.
 
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The more intelligence, the more critical thinking. It's very easy to manage a crowd full of ignorants.

“Smart” people do “dumb” things :xf.wink:

Critical thinking is not intelligence. Critical thinking is an awareness. It is a collection of cognitive skills that allows one to think rationally and to use those skills appropriately. Generally critical thinkers are more flexible - they require evidence to support their beliefs and recognize the false attempts to persuade them. Critical thinking today means being skeptical of biases ie. media.
 
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“Smart” people do “dumb” things :xf.wink:

Critical thinking is not intelligence. Critical thinking is an awareness. It is a collection of cognitive skills that allows one to think rationally and to use those skills appropriately. Generally critical thinkers are more flexible - they require evidence to support their beliefs and recognize the false attempts to persuade them. Critical thinking today means being skeptical of biases ie. media.

Sure, smart people do dumb things, but in way less amount than ignorant people.
Intelligence defined by education and knowledge, helps having more clue about what's happening around you.
Critical thinking is not intelligence, that's for sure. You just have to see the amount of deniers and conspiracy theorists criticizing even the most elemental and basic things.
You need education and knowledge, to distinguish the info that comes to you. It's not about the media or not, it's about having a minimum knowledge to think for yourself, and not letting others think for you.
 
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New research shows that, on average, our brains work best in the middle of the day – if asked to perform abstract, logical or problem-solving tasks

Monash economist Denni Tommasi and University of Granada economist Alessio Gaggero came to this conclusion after studying 500,000 exam paper results in the UK over a five-year period. The exams were scheduled at 9am, 1.30pm and 4.30pm.

“We discovered a regularity that we couldn’t explain by simple economic reasoning,” Dr Tommasi says. The exam result study suggested the cognitive peak happened in the middle of the day – on average, STEM students performed best in the 1.30pm exam.

Dr Tommasi says the exam’s timing gave STEM students an average 5% advantage – not enough to turn a bad student into a good student, “but if you are borderline for a high distinction, this would make a difference”.
 
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A 5-story building in Shanghai 'walks' to a new location

An 85-year-old primary school has been lifted off the ground -- in its entirety -- and relocated using new technology dubbed the "walking machine."

In the city's latest effort to preserve historic structures, engineers attached nearly 200 mobile supports under the five-story building, according to Lan Wuji, chief technical supervisor of the project.

The supports act like robotic legs. They're split into two groups which alternately rise up and down, imitating the human stride. Attached sensors help control how the building moves forward, said Lan, whose company Shanghai Evolution Shift developed the new technology in 2018.

Thanks @koolishman

The time-lapse video in the article is incredible!

Why knock down a building when you can simply relocate it to an adjacent spot and clear land for another building.

It made me think of the sci-fi film Mortal Engines where entire cities are on wheels ;)
 
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Sure, smart people do dumb things, but in way less amount than ignorant people.
Intelligence defined by education and knowledge, helps having more clue about what's happening around you.
Critical thinking is not intelligence, that's for sure. You just have to see the amount of deniers and conspiracy theorists criticizing even the most elemental and basic things.
You need education and knowledge, to distinguish the info that comes to you. It's not about the media or not, it's about having a minimum knowledge to think for yourself, and not letting others think for you.

I equate things happening around me in nature, and the people I interact with - nature vs nurture - that has shaped my schema or world view. I question and reflect upon whether I am wrong or right in my assumptions of what I believe to be true - if there is indeed a right and a wrong, both a blessing and a curse. Even by examining, am I not shaping reality by some form of bias? It is very likely that there be more to the truth than I could possibly understand. What bubble am I currently in? That brings us back to the Quantum Multiverse Theory or Many Universes Theory, lol.

 
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I equate things happening around me in nature, and the people I interact with - nature vs nurture - that has shaped my schema or world view. I question and reflect upon whether I am wrong or right in my assumptions of what I believe to be true - if there is indeed a right and a wrong, both a blessing and a curse. Even by examining, am I not shaping reality by some form of bias? It is very likely that there be more to the truth than I could possibly understand. What bubble am I currently in? That brings us back to the Quantum Multiverse Theory or Many Universes Theory, lol.


I believe that good/evil, right/wrong are empathetic or moral constructs formed out of a necessity to answer philosophical questions about our existence.

I'd be interested in seeing any scientific studies covering this subject.

As for the many-worlds theory, it's one that I don't believe can ever be proven or disproven, so it is a great theory for sci-fi storylines but pointless investing too much time worrying about.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse

EDIT: Both these subjects could send you mad ;)
 
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Already this thread is a time waster ( in good sense) and head spinner for me.:xf.grin:
 
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