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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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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
Personally I never post on social media, but based on recent events, may be a belief in their actions as patriots and by so chronicling, is actually an attempt at debunking fake news. People have become desensitized and oversensationalized, that they may have a sense of distorted/misguided reality.

Interesting viewpoint.

I always thought the trigger was " I was here" and " I am superior because I witnessed this" kind of feeling.
 
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From Trump to Biden: How transfer of nuclear codes will work

VIDEO: With President Donald Trump leaving Washington, DC without meeting President-elect Joe Biden, CNN's Barbara Starr breaks down how the exchange of the United States' nuclear weapon codes will happen.

https://edition.cnn.com/videos/poli...en-trump-hand-off-inauguration-newday-vpx.cnn


-------------


...if an adversary were to launch a nuclear strike at the US, the president would immediately be on a classified communications network...

I'm assuming they are referring to the secret network set-up in the late 1960's by DARPA, known as ARPANET, and otherwise known as the 'internet'.

Obviously not Twitter because his accounts have been deactivated.

And yes, I meant this all tongue in cheek.
 
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^^

Oh no... the engines were shut down in the first minute during the gimbal test sequence of NASA's Green Run Hot Fire test.
:(

Waiting for more info as to why the engines didn't fire for the full 8-minutes.

Watch the video link above for the post-test briefing in 2-hours time.

Before shortened NASA SLS rocket engine test, officials predicted only a 50 percent chance of complete success

But during a private briefing Tuesday morning, industry officials said their expectations for successfully completing all the test objectives had been only “50/50” given the complexity of the test and the fact that the four engines had never been fired while attached to NASA’s Space Launch System rocket.

“Public expectations should have been set lower,” according to notes of the meeting by a participant that were obtained by The Washington Post. In the end, NASA got 100 percent of the data it needed for only 15 of the 23 test objectives, after the engines fired for just 67.2 seconds instead of the full eight minutes as planned.
 
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A 99-million-year-old beetle shines light on the evolution of glowing insects

The beetle, known by its Latin name Cretophengodes, was found fossilized in a piece of amber in northern Myanmar. The tropical location was full of insect life during the Cretaceous period, said study author Chenyang Cai, an associate professor at Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.

Each of the insect's antennae had 12 segments branching off it, but what caught Cai's eye was the light organ nestled into its abdomen. That organ gave the beetle bioluminescence, the ability for a living organism to produce its own light, Cai said.
210119145609-beetle-fossil-restricted-exlarge-169.jpg


Modern-day insects such as fireflies and glowworms are part of Elateroidea, the same superfamily animal classification that the beetle is from.

It's not known why the beetles were bioluminescent, but based on relatives, Cai speculated that the function was used as a defense mechanism. Today, some young beetle larvae in the same superfamily have used light to protect themselves from predators, and adults have been known to use their light abilities to attract mates.
Modern-day fireflies produce light through a chemical reaction in their body. When a series of ingredients including the compound luciferin and the enzyme luciferase interact with oxygen, it produces a flickering
 
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Dinosaur fossils could belong to the world's largest ever creature

Experts have uncovered the remains of a gigantic dinosaur in Argentina, and believe it could be one of the largest creatures to have ever walked the Earth.

Paleontologists discovered the fossilized remains of a 98 million-year-old titanosaur in Neuquén Province in Argentina's northwest Patagonia, in thick, sedimentary deposits known as the Candeleros Formation.

The 24 vertebrae of the tail and elements of the pelvic and pectoral girdle discovered are thought to belong to a titanosaur, a diverse group of sauropod dinosaurs, characterized by their large size, a long neck and tail, and four-legged stance.

210119124337-01-argentina-titanosaur-discovery-exlarge-169.jpg


In research published in the journal Cretaceous Research, experts say they believe the creature to be "one of the largest sauropods ever found" and could exceed the size of a Patagotitan, a species which lived 100 million to 95 million years ago and measured up to a staggering 37.2 meters (122 feet) long.
 
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Before shortened NASA SLS rocket engine test, officials predicted only a 50 percent chance of complete success

But during a private briefing Tuesday morning, industry officials said their expectations for successfully completing all the test objectives had been only “50/50” given the complexity of the test and the fact that the four engines had never been fired while attached to NASA’s Space Launch System rocket.

“Public expectations should have been set lower,” according to notes of the meeting by a participant that were obtained by The Washington Post. In the end, NASA got 100 percent of the data it needed for only 15 of the 23 test objectives, after the engines fired for just 67.2 seconds instead of the full eight minutes as planned.

Agree.
I was a bit surprised that the firing was broadcast live, but they obviously had enough confidence that the rocket wasn't likely to suffer a catastrophic malfunction on the test stand to take the PR chance.

FROM NASA

Green Run Update: Data and Inspections Indicate Core Stage in Good Condition

Jan 19, 2021

The Space Launch System (SLS) rocket Green Run team has reviewed extensive data and completed preliminary inspections that show the rocket’s hardware is in excellent condition after the Green Run test that ignited all the engines at 5:27 p.m. EST at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. After analyzing initial data, the team determined that the shutdown after firing the engines for 67.2-seconds on Jan.16 was triggered by test parameters that were intentionally conservative to ensure the safety of the core stage during the test.

These preprogrammed parameters are designed specifically for ground testing with the flight hardware that will fly NASA’s Artemis I mission to ensure the core stage’s thrust vector control system safely moves the engines. There is a thrust vector control (TVC) system that gimbals, or pivots, each engine, and there are two actuators that generate the forces to gimbal each engine. The actuators in the TVC system are powered by Core Stage Auxiliary Power Units (CAPU). As planned, the thrust vector control systems gimbaled the engines to simulate how they move to direct thrust during the rocket’s ascent.

During gimballing, the hydraulic system associated with the core stage’s power unit for Engine 2, also known as engine E2056, exceeded the pre-set test limits that had been established. As they were programmed to do, the flight computers automatically ended the test. The specific logic that stopped the test is unique to the ground test when the core stage is mounted in the B-2 test stand at Stennis. If this scenario occurred during a flight, the rocket would have continued to fly using the remaining CAPUs to power the thrust vector control systems for the engines.

During the test, the functionality of shutting down one CAPU and transferring the power to the remaining CAPUs was successfully demonstrated. This gimballing test event that resulted in shutting down the CAPU was an intentionally stressing case for the system that was intended to exercise the capabilities of the system. The data is being assessed as part of the process of finalizing the pre-set test limits prior to the next usage of the core stage.

Throughout the hot fire, all four engines performed as expected. While the test planned to fire the four engines for about 8 minutes, the team still achieved several objectives during the shorter firing. They repeated the wet dress rehearsal, once again filling the tanks with more than 700,000 gallons of propellant with some added modifications to procedures to ensure proper thermal conditioning of the engines. They successfully pressurized the propellant tanks, completed the countdown, and ignited the engines for the first time. The engines reached their full power of 109 percent producing 1.6 million pounds of thrust, just as they will during the Artemis I launch.

Initial data indicate the sensor reading for a major component failure, or MCF, that occurred about 1.5 seconds after engine start was not related to the hot fire shutdown. It involved the loss of one leg of redundancy prior to T-0 in the instrumentation for Engine 4, also known as engine number E2060. Engine ignition begins 6 seconds prior to T-0, and they fire in sequence about 120 milliseconds apart. Test constraints for hot fire were set up to allow the test to proceed with this condition, because the engine control system still has sufficient redundancy to ensure safe engine operation during the test. The team plans to investigate and resolve the Engine 4 instrumentation issue before the next use of the core stage.

Engineers also continue to investigate reports of a “flash” around the engines. A visual inspection of the thermal blankets that protect the engine show signs of some exterior scorching, which was anticipated due to their proximity to engine and CAPU exhaust. Sensor data indicate temperatures in the core stage engine section were normal. Both observations are an early indication the blankets did their job and protected the rocket from the extreme heat generated by the engines and CAPU exhaust.

Data analysis is continuing to help the team determine if a second hot fire test is required. The team can make slight adjustments to the thrust vector control parameters and prevent an automatic shut down if they decide to conduct another test with the core stage mounted in the B-2 stand.

https://blogs.nasa.gov/artemis/2021...ctions-indicate-core-stage-in-good-condition/



To cut a long story short, if this had been an actual launch, the engines would not have shut down, and redundancy systems would have enabled SLS to continue the flight profile.

It's fantastic news!

Hopefully, the next time those massive RS-25 engines fire up, they will be launching Artemis-I on a journey around the Moon and back.
 
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1st preserved dinosaur butthole is 'perfect' and 'unique,' paleontologist says

The dinosaur's derrière is so well preserved, researchers could see the remnants of two small bulges by its "back door," which might have housed musky scent glands that the reptile possibly used during courtship — an anatomical quirk also seen in living crocodilians, said scientists who studied the specimen.


AiicZtdo6saUAmHhdQngZX-320-80.jpg



Although this dinosaur's caboose shares some characteristics with the backsides of some living creatures, it's also a one-of-a-kind opening, the researchers found. "The anatomy is unique," study lead researcher Jakob Vinther, a paleobiologist at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, told Live Science. It doesn't quite look like the opening on birds, which are the closest living relatives of dinosaurs. It does look a bit like the back opening on a crocodile, he said, but it's different in some ways. "It's its own cloaca, shaped in its perfect, unique way," Vinther said
 
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Butterflies create jet propulsion with a clap of their wings

The whimsical, wafting flight of butterflies may not give the impression of top aerodynamic performance, but research published on Wednesday suggests their large flexible wings could be perfectly designed to give them a burst of jet propulsion.

BB1cU6hx.img


In their aerodynamic analysis of free-flying butterflies published in the journal Interface, they showed that the clap function does generate a jet of air propulsion.

But they also found that the butterflies perform this move "in a far more advanced way than we ever realised", said co-author Per Henningsson, a professor in the department of biology at Lund University.

At the moment the wings beat together they "were not just two flat surfaces slamming together", he told
AFP.

Instead, they form a "pocket" shape believed to trap more air.


 
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Warped Egg Yolks Are Helping Scientists Understand How to Prevent Brain Injuries

010-egg-deformation-1.jpg


Research investigating the biomechanics of brain injuries typically involves crash test dummies headed for an accident, athletes wearing mouthguards or helmets equipped with motion sensors, or models simulating the human brain.

Now, scientists have thrown eggs into the mix...

https://www.sciencealert.com/how-do...-the-answer-might-help-prevent-brain-injuries
 
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1st preserved dinosaur butthole is 'perfect' and 'unique,' paleontologist says

The dinosaur's derrière is so well preserved, researchers could see the remnants of two small bulges by its "back door," which might have housed musky scent glands that the reptile possibly used during courtship — an anatomical quirk also seen in living crocodilians, said scientists who studied the specimen.


AiicZtdo6saUAmHhdQngZX-320-80.jpg



Although this dinosaur's caboose shares some characteristics with the backsides of some living creatures, it's also a one-of-a-kind opening, the researchers found. "The anatomy is unique," study lead researcher Jakob Vinther, a paleobiologist at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, told Live Science. It doesn't quite look like the opening on birds, which are the closest living relatives of dinosaurs. It does look a bit like the back opening on a crocodile, he said, but it's different in some ways. "It's its own cloaca, shaped in its perfect, unique way," Vinther said

The sub-editor and picture-editor kicked ass publishing this story!
 
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Starfish: rare fossil helps answer the mystery of how they evolved arms

file-20210118-19-1eduhna.jpeg


A chance discovery of a beautifully preserved fossil in the desert landscape of Morocco has solved one of the great mysteries of biology and palaeontology: how starfish evolved their arms.

Starfish are one of the most recognisable animals on our planet. Most people probably associate them with trips to the beach, walking in rock pools or swimming in the sea. They might appear simple creatures, but the way these animals’ distinctive biology evolved was, until recently, unknown.

Our new study, published in the journal Biology Letters, sheds light on how the starfish developed its distinctive shape.

https://theconversation.com/starfis...r-the-mystery-of-how-they-evolved-arms-153481
 
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Where do our minds wander? Brain waves can point the way

Using an electroencephalogram (EEG) to measure brain activity while people performed mundane attention tasks, researchers identified brain signals that reveal when the mind is not focused on the task at hand or aimlessly wandering, especially after concentrating on an assignment.

Specifically, increased alpha brain waves were detected in the prefrontal cortex of more than two dozen study participants when their thoughts jumped from one topic to another, providing an electrophysiological signature for unconstrained, spontaneous thought. Alpha waves are slow brain rhythms whose frequency ranges from 9 to 14 cycles per second.

Meanwhile, weaker brain signals known as P3 were observed in the parietal cortex, further offering a neural marker for when people are not paying attention to the task at hand.

The findings, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, suggest that tuning out our external environment and allowing our internal thoughts to move freely and creatively are a necessary function of the brain and can promote relaxation and exploration.

Moreover, EEG markers of how our thoughts flow when our brains are at rest can help researchers and clinicians detect certain patterns of thinking, even before patients are aware of where their minds are wandering.
 
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Food intake patterns are partly under genetic control, study shows

Your food intake patterns are partly under genetic control, according to the latest research from researchers at King's College London, published today in the journal Twin Research and Human Genetics.

Researchers can study the quality of an individual's typical diet by using a type of analysis called 'dietary indices'. Researchers use dietary indices to understand what foods someone eats and the nutrients provided, compared with recommended guidelines.

The team analyzed food questionnaire responses from 2,590 twins, using nine commonly used dietary indices. The researchers studied the degree of similarity among identical twins - who share 100% of their genes - compared with non-identical twins, who share 50% of their genes.

https://www.news-medical.net/news/2...partly-under-genetic-control-study-shows.aspx
 
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Earth's outer shell ballooned during massive growth spurt 3 billion years ago

At that time, just 1.5 billion years after Earth formed, the mantle — the layer of silicate rock between the crust and the outer core that was more active in the past — heated up, causing magma from that layer to ooze into fragments of older crust above it. Those fragments acted as "seeds" for the growth of modern-day continents.

BB1cVs2L.img


The researchers found evidence for this growth spurt hiding in ancient zircon crystals in stream sediments in Greenland. These extremely durable crystals — made up of zirconium silicate — formed during the growth spurt around 3 billion years ago.

 
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MIT researchers grow structures made of wood-like plant cells in a lab, hinting at the possibility of more efficient biomaterials production.

It takes a lot to make a wooden table. Grow a tree, cut it down, transport it, mill it … you get the point. It’s a decades-long process. Luis Fernando Velásquez-García suggests a simpler solution: “If you want a table, then you should just grow a table.”

MIT-Cultured-Plants-01-press_0.jpg


Researchers in Velásquez-García’s group have proposed a way to grow certain plant tissues, such as wood and fiber, in a lab. Still in its early stages, the idea is akin in some ways to cultured meat — an opportunity to streamline the production of biomaterials. The team demonstrated the concept by growing structures made of wood-like cells from an initial sample of cells extracted from zinnia leaves.

While that’s still a long way from growing a table, the work provides a possible starting point for novel approaches to biomaterials production that ease the environmental burden of forestry and agriculture. “The way we get these materials hasn’t changed in centuries and is very inefficient,” says Velásquez-García. “This is a real chance to bypass all that inefficiency.”

https://news.mit.edu/2021/lab-grown-plant-tissue-0120
 
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SpaceX rocket launches on record 8th flight carrying 60 Starlink satellites, nails landing

VzCv9GKP3bycNhiY6Nrt38-970-80.jpg.webp


It's the most-flown Falcon 9 ever. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched on a record 8th flight to send a new fleet of the company's Starlink internet satellites into orbit on Wednesday (Jan.20) and then nailed a landing at sea.


The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from the historic Pad 39A here at NASA's Kennedy Space Center at 8:02 a.m. EDT (1202 GMT) carrying 60 new Starlink satellites for SpaceX's growing constellation in orbit. The launch came after two days of delay due to poor weather in the recovery zone and the need for extra pre-flight checks.

Approximately 9 minutes after liftoff, the Falcon 9's first stage returned to Earth, landing on one of SpaceX's drone ships in the Atlantic Ocean in a smooth touchdown. The massive ship, "Just Read the Instructions," is one of two in the company’s fleet of recovery vessels that catch falling boosters and return them to port.

https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-17-record-rocket-launch-landing-success
 
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SpaceX rocket launches on record 8th flight carrying 60 Starlink satellites, nails landing

VzCv9GKP3bycNhiY6Nrt38-970-80.jpg.webp


It's the most-flown Falcon 9 ever. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched on a record 8th flight to send a new fleet of the company's Starlink internet satellites into orbit on Wednesday (Jan.20) and then nailed a landing at sea.


The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from the historic Pad 39A here at NASA's Kennedy Space Center at 8:02 a.m. EDT (1202 GMT) carrying 60 new Starlink satellites for SpaceX's growing constellation in orbit. The launch came after two days of delay due to poor weather in the recovery zone and the need for extra pre-flight checks.

Approximately 9 minutes after liftoff, the Falcon 9's first stage returned to Earth, landing on one of SpaceX's drone ships in the Atlantic Ocean in a smooth touchdown. The massive ship, "Just Read the Instructions," is one of two in the company’s fleet of recovery vessels that catch falling boosters and return them to port.

https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-17-record-rocket-launch-landing-success

Now, this will no longer be news but routine stuff.

Elon Musk and tail-landing rockets! Amazing what he pulled off.
 
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50,000

To celebrate the milestone of 50,000 views, here are some very special numbers in the 50,000 to 59,999 range.


Selected numbers in the range 50,001–59,999


50,001 to 50,999

  • 50,069 – 11 + 22 + 33 + 44 + 55 + 66
  • 50,400highly composite number
  • 50,625 – 154, smallest fourth power that can be expressed as the sum of only five distinct fourth powers, palindromic in base 14 (1464114)
  • 50,653 – 373, palindromic in base 6 (10303016)
51,000 to 51,999
  • 51,076 – 2262, palindromic in base 15 (1020115)
  • 51,641Markov number
  • 51,984 – 2282 = 373 + 113. the smallest square to the sum of only five distinct fourth powers.
52,000 to 52,999
53,000 to 53,999
54,000 to 54,999
55,000 to 55,999
56,000 to 56,999
57,000 to 57,999
  • 57,121 – 2392, palindromic in base 14 (16B6114)
58,000 to 58,999
  • 58,081 – 2412, palindromic in base 15 (1232115)
  • 58,367 – smallest integer that cannot be expressed as a sum of fewer than 1079 tenth powers
  • 58,786Catalan number
59,000 to 59,999
  • 59,049 – 310, 95
  • 59,081Zeisel number
  • 59,319 – 393
  • 59,536 – 2442, palindromic in base 11 (4080411)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50,000
 
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Now, this will no longer be news but routine stuff.

Elon Musk and tail-landing rockets! Amazing what he pulled off.

Yes, and this is just the Falcon 9.

Today's launch marks the 102nd flight overall for SpaceX's workhorse two-stage Falcon 9 rocket, as well as the 72nd successful landing for the company.

Starship should be flying again in the next few days. I'm very keen to see how that develops over the coming year.

Very impressive!
 
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Glaciers on Mars reveal the planet's many ice ages

Glaciers that still exist on the surface of Mars are helping to tell the story of its past.

The red planet experienced between six and 20 separate ice ages during the past 300 to 800 million years, a new analysis of glaciers on Mars has revealed.

During the last ice age on Earth 20,000 years ago, our planet was covered in glaciers. Those glaciers then retreated to the poles. These masses of ice left behind rocks as evidence, dropping them while scraping and carving paths as they moved to the poles.

210120133655-restricted-mars-glaciers-exlarge-169.jpg


The Martian glaciers, on the other hand, never left. They have remained frozen on the planet's surface, which has an average temperature of negative 81 degrees Fahrenheit, for more than 300 million years -- they've just been covered in debris.

The content of these glaciers could include evidence of life that may have once existed on Mars.
"If there are any biomarkers blowing around, those are going to be trapped in the ice too," Levy said.
The discovery of the rock bands inside the glaciers is also useful information for astronauts who may one day land on Mars and drill into the glaciers to use its water ice.


"All the rocks and sand carried on that ice have remained on the surface," said study author Joe Levy, a planetary geologist and assistant professor of geology at Colgate University, in a statement. "It's like putting the ice in a cooler under all those sediments."
 
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First evidence of usage of currency from bronze age?

WHEN WAS MONEY INVENTED? A NEW STUDY HAS THE ANSWER

A research team based in the Netherlands has uncovered a point in Early Bronze Age history that may have been the beginning of currency as we know it. They used a new method for detecting evidence of standardized weights and measures — the telltale signs of emergent currency. Civilizations some 5,000-4,000 years ago (3,000-2,100 BC) used the weight of these objects to measure and use them as money.
5915072e-fa58-44a1-bf19-fa133c79c197-bronze-age-rings.jpg


The researchers found that up to 70 percent of certain bronze objects were indistinguishably the same weight, implying they were created to be interchangeable. There were objects shaped like rings, objects shaped like ax blades, and objects shaped like ribs. In photos, they almost look more like green beans, as oxidation has turned them a beautiful shade of emerald:
 
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Ten computer codes that transformed science

It’s an increasingly common pattern. From astronomy to zoology, behind every great scientific finding of the modern age, there is a computer. Michael Levitt, a computational biologist at Stanford University in California who won a share of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on computational strategies for modelling chemical structure, notes that today’s laptops have about 10,000 times the memory and clock speed that his lab-built computer had in 1967, when he began his prizewinning work. “We really do have quite phenomenal amounts of computing at our hands today,” he says. “Trouble is, it still requires thinking.”

Enter the scientist-coder. A powerful computer is useless without software capable of tackling research questions — and researchers who know how to write it and use it. “Research is now fundamentally connected to software,” says Neil Chue Hong, director of the Software Sustainability Institute, headquartered in Edinburgh, UK, an organization dedicated to improving the development and use of software in science. “It permeates every aspect of the conduct of research.”

Scientific discoveries rightly get top billing in the media. But Nature this week looks behind the scenes, at the key pieces of code that have transformed research over the past few decades.

Although no list like this can be definitive, we polled dozens of researchers over the past year to develop a diverse line-up of ten software tools that have had a big impact on the world of science. You can weigh in on our choices at the end of the story.


    • Fortran compiler
    • Fast Fourier transform
    • Biological databases
    • General circulation model of the climate
    • BLAS
    • NIH Image / ImageJ / Fiji
    • BLAST
    • arXiv
    • IPython Notebook / Jupyter
    • AlexNet
 
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2020's Biggest Breakthroughs in Physics

This year, two teams of physicists made profound progress on ideas that could bring about the next revolution in physics. Another still has identified the source of a longstanding cosmic mystery.



1. Here’s an extremely brief version of the black hole information paradox: Stuff falls into a black hole. Over time — a long, long time — the black hole “evaporates.” What happened to the stuff? According to the rules of gravity, it’s gone, its information lost forever. But according to the rules of quantum mechanics, information can never be lost. Therefore, paradox. This year, a series of tour de force calculations has shown that information must somehow escape — even if how it does so remains a mystery.

2. Levitating trains, lossless power transmission, perfect energy storage: The promise of room-temperature superconductivity has fed many a utopian dream. A team based at the University of Rochester in New York reported that they had created a material based on a lattice of hydrogen atoms that showed evidence of superconductivity at up to about 15 degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit) — about the temperature of a chilly room. The only catch: Superconductivity at this temperature only works if the material is crushed inside a diamond anvil to pressures approaching those of Earth’s core. Utopia will have to wait.

3. A dazzling cosmic strobe has ended an enduring astronomical mystery. Fast radio bursts — blips of distant radio waves that last for mere milliseconds — have eluded explanation since they were first discovered in 2007. Or rather, astronomers had come up with far too many theories to explain what are, for the brief time they’re alight, the most powerful radio sources in the universe. But on a quiet morning in April, a burst “lit up our telescope like a Christmas tree,” said one astronomer. This allowed researchers to trace its source back to a part of the sky where an object had been shooting out X-rays. Astronomers concluded that a highly magnetized neutron star called a magnetar was behind the phenomenon.
 
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Mysterious, Upside-Down Lightning May Not Be a Freak Phenomenon After All

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Of all the weather phenomena our magnificent planet throws at us, lightning is one of the most spectacular - and the most mysterious. Even though storms are a regular occurrence, we're still at pains to understand and describe their crackling electrical discharges generated in the sky.

One kind of lightning is so strange and rare, in fact, that we didn't even have concrete evidence it existed until 1990, when researchers identified its signature 'rocket-like' motion in video shot from NASA's Space Shuttle the previous year.

Later dubbed 'blue jets', the streaks are now recognised as brilliant flashes of light that last just a few hundred milliseconds, as lightning streaks upwards from the clouds and into the stratosphere.

https://www.sciencealert.com/rare-a...wn-blue-jet-lightning-might-not-be-so-unusual
 
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Outgoing NASA chief Jim Bridenstine calls for unity in space exploration pursuits

Jim Bridenstine, who served as NASA administrator from April 2018 through today's (Jan. 20) inauguration of President Joe Biden, said that his successor should strive to bring the agency together as much as possible.

"As far as, like, what advice I could give to the next administrator, it is to find wherever there are divisions and eliminate them," Bridenstine told reporters during a teleconference yesterday (Jan. 19). Bridenstine said in November that he would step down as NASA chief when the Biden administration took over, according to an Aerospace Daily & Defense Report.

The ambitious Artemis timeline may be relaxed a bit under President Biden, experts say. However, Bridenstine hopes that the program will be allowed to continue until it achieves its primary goals years down the road. That won't happen without internal NASA unity and buy-in from political leaders, which will be required for a long-term effort like Artemis, he said.

"This is an agency that does not do well when we get cast to and fro between administrations," Bridenstine said.

With Bridenstine stepping down, his former deputy Steve Jurczyk takes the reins as NASA's acting administrator. Jurczyk will serve in this role until President Biden's choice for NASA chief, which he has not yet named, is sworn in.

https://www.space.com/nasa-chief-jim-bridenstine-unity-space-exploration
 
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