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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.
The human genome at 20: How biology's most-hyped breakthrough led to anticlimax and arrests

When President Bill Clinton took to a White House lectern 20 years ago to announce that the human genome sequence had been completed, he hailed the breakthrough as "the most important, most wondrous map ever produced by humankind." The scientific achievement was placed on par with the moon landings.

It was hoped that having access to the sequence would transform our understanding of human disease within 20 years, leading to better treatment, detection and prevention. The famous journal article that shared our genetic ingredients with the world, published in February 2001, was welcomed as a "Book of Life" that could revolutionize medicine by showing which of our genes led to which illnesses.

But in the two decades since, the sequence has underwhelmed. The potential of our newfound genetic self-knowledge has not been fulfilled. Instead, what has emerged is a new frontier in genetic research: new questions for a new batch of researchers to answer.

Today, the gaps between our genes, and the switches that direct genetic activity, are emerging as powerful determinants behind how we look and how we get ill—perhaps deciding up to 90% of what makes us different from one another. Understanding this "genetic dark matter," using the knowledge provided by the human genome sequence, will help us to push further into our species' genetic secrets.

https://phys.org/news/2021-02-human-genome-biology-most-hyped-breakthrough.html
 
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'Dare mighty things': hidden message found on Nasa Mars rover parachute

Social media users say message is encoded in red-and-white pattern on parachute


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Internet sleuths claim to have decoded a hidden message displayed on the parachute that helped Nasa’s Perseverance Rover land safely on Mars last week. They claim that the phrase “Dare mighty things” – used as a motto by Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory – was encoded on the parachute using a pattern representing letters as binary computer code.

https://www.theguardian.com/science...en-message-found-on-nasa-mars-rover-parachute
 
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The United Airlines Flight 328 engine failure, explained
Initial focus is on metal fatigue in a fan blade in the jet’s number-two thruster.

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On Saturday, February 20, a United Airlines flight lifted off from Denver International Airport, bound for Hawaii. Just minutes after departure, its number-two engine—the one on the right side—suffered a major failure.

Dramatic footage of the heavily damaged and flaming engine circulated on Twitter, as did images of engine pieces that landed in Broomfield, Colorado.

The aircraft touched down safely back at the same airport, and no one was hurt. While investigations into the event will stretch out months into the future, here’s what we know now about what occurred and what officials’ initial thoughts are.

https://www.popsci.com/story/technology/united-airlines-flight-328-engine-failure/
 
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Scientists' predictions for the long-term future of the Voyager Golden Records will blow your mind
Buckle up, everyone, and let's take a ride on a universe-size time machine.

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The future is a slippery thing, but sometimes physics can help. And while human destiny will remain ever unknown, the fate of two of our artifacts can be calculated in staggering detail.

Those artifacts are the engraved "Golden Records" strapped to NASA's twin Voyager spacecraft, which have passed into interstellar space. Although the spacecraft will likely fall silent in a few years, the records will remain. Nick Oberg, a doctoral candidate at the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute in the Netherlands, and a colleague wanted to calculate which (if any) stars the two Voyager spacecraft may encounter in the long future of our galaxy.

American Astronomical Society, held virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic, on Jan. 12, where he spun a tale of the long future of the twin Voyagers and their Golden Records.

https://www.space.com/predicting-voyager-golden-records-distant-future
 
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Yale scientists repair injured spinal cord using patients’ own stem cells

Intravenous injection of bone marrow derived stem cells (MSCs) in patients with spinal cord injuries led to significant improvement in motor functions, researchers from Yale University and Japan report Feb. 18 in the Journal of Clinical Neurology and Neurosurgery.

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For more than half of the patients, substantial improvements in key functions — such as ability to walk, or to use their hands — were observed within weeks of stem cell injection, the researchers report. No substantial side effects were reported.

The patients had sustained, non-penetrating spinal cord injuries, in many cases from falls or minor trauma, several weeks prior to implantation of the stem cells. Their symptoms involved loss of motor function and coordination, sensory loss, as well as bowel and bladder dysfunction. The stem cells were prepared from the patients’ own bone marrow, via a culture protocol that took a few weeks in a specialized cell processing center. The cells were injected intravenously in this series, with each patient serving as their own control. Results were not blinded and there were no placebo controls.
 
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'Dare mighty things': hidden message found on Nasa Mars rover parachute

Social media users say message is encoded in red-and-white pattern on parachute


4000.jpg


Internet sleuths claim to have decoded a hidden message displayed on the parachute that helped Nasa’s Perseverance Rover land safely on Mars last week. They claim that the phrase “Dare mighty things” – used as a motto by Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory – was encoded on the parachute using a pattern representing letters as binary computer code.

https://www.theguardian.com/science...en-message-found-on-nasa-mars-rover-parachute

Update on this story.

Apparently only six people knew about this before the landing.

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The huge parachute used by NASA's Perseverance rover to land on Mars contained a secret message, thanks to a puzzle-lover on the spacecraft team.

Systems engineer Ian Clark used a binary code to spell out "Dare Mighty Things" in the orange and white strips of the 21-metre parachute.

He also included the GPS coordinates for the mission's headquarters at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

The crossword hobbyist came up with the idea two years ago.

Engineers wanted an unusual pattern in the nylon fabric so they could see how the parachute was oriented during descent.

Turning it into a secret message was "super fun," Mr Clark said.

Only about six people knew about the encoded message before last week's landing.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science...ver-parachute-carried-secret-message/13187476
 
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Soot from Asia travels express on a highway to the high Arctic

Black carbon from fuel combustion in South Asia bolsters the effects of climate change on northern ice and snow.

Airborne pollutants from South Asia are a major source of the black carbon particles that exacerbate melting thousands of kilometres away in the frozen Arctic.

The burning of fossil fuels and wood creates black carbon, which absorbs more solar energy than any other component of the microscopic air pollution called particulate matter. Airborne black carbon can sully the otherwise pristine ice and snow surfaces in the Arctic, making them reflect less sunlight and absorb more heat.

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John Backman at the Finnish Meteorological Institute in Helsinki and his colleagues used a statistical model to analyse the origin of black carbon found at sites across the Arctic. They concluded that a busy black-carbon expressway runs from India over Central Asia and into the Arctic.

The team traced atmospheric black carbon at various Arctic stations to one source region in South Asia, suggesting that the pollutants quickly spread far and wide across the Arctic. Pollution from this source region explains many of the highest concentrations of black carbon observed in the Arctic during winter months.





 
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It appears that the re-run of NASA's final SLS Green Run Hot Fire test may be delayed for a couple more days...

Green Run Update: NASA Investigating Valve Performance Before Second Hot Fire


NASA’s is reviewing the performance of a valve on the core stage of the Space Launch System rocket before proceeding with a second hot fire test at the agency’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.

During checkout preparations over the weekend, engineers determined that one of eight valves (a type of valve called a prevalve) was not working properly. This valve is part of the core stage main propulsion system that supplies liquid oxygen to an RS-25 engine. During the first hot fire, all four liquid oxygen valves performed as expected as did the four liquid hydrogen valves. NASA and the core stage lead contractor Boeing will identify a path forward in the days ahead and reschedule the hot fire test that was originally scheduled for Feb. 25.

https://blogs.nasa.gov/artemis/2021...ing-valve-performance-before-second-hot-fire/
 
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The Qualcomm Snapdragon XR1 AR Smart Viewer Reference Design

A new system from Qualcomm. This industry is hotting up!
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The Qualcomm Snapdragon XR1 AR Smart Viewer Reference Design is Qualcomm Technologies’ first augmented reality (AR) reference design based on the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR1 Platform. It’s equipped to deliver high-performance, immersive experiences, and lower power consumption. The reference design is an AR smart viewer with the versatility to tether to a compatible smartphone, Windows PC, or processing puck and is optimized for devices powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon Platforms.

Qualcomm Technologies continues to drive the XR ecosystem forward with our new Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ XR1 AR Smart Viewer reference design powered by the Snapdragon XR1 Platform. Smart Viewers are a type of augmented reality glasses that overlay digital information into your field of vision. Our XR1 AR Smart Viewer reference design is engineered to improve the user experience by including the processing power of the Snapdragon XR1 chipset on the glasses, while also sharing processing with a connected Snapdragon 5G smartphone or PC device. Now hardware manufacturers can accelerate their design and development of commercial Smart Viewer solutions via early access to the latest technology and features of the Snapdragon XR1 chipset and reference design.

Qualcomm Snapdragon XR1 platform: https://www.qualcomm.com/products/snapdragon-xr1-platform
 
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SpaceX fires up SN10 Starship prototype for 1st time to prep for test flight

SN10 could fly as early as Thursday (Feb. 25).

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SpaceX's latest Starship prototype just roared to life.

The Starship SN10 ("Serial No. 10") vehicle performed its first "static fire" test on Tuesday (Feb. 23), lighting up its three Raptor engines for a few seconds at 6:03 p.m. EST (2303 GMT) at SpaceX's South Texas site, near the Gulf Coast settlement of Boca Chica Village.

as early as Thursday (Feb. 25) — on a 6-mile-high (10 kilometers) demonstration flight into the South Texas skies.

https://www.space.com/spacex-starship-sn10-prototype-static-fire
 
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Wearable Thermoelectric Generators. The studies and terminology 'wearable TEG' have been around since at least 2013 (corrected) that I am aware of. The latest news concerns the development of a stretchable material for use as a wearable TEG.

Scientists Just Figured Out How to Turn Your Body Into a Battery

plugging-usb-cable-in-hand-with-low-battery-symbol-royalty-free-image-1614118286.


A tiny new gadget could turn your body’s electricity into a battery, meaning pacemakers, drug delivery pumps, and other implantable medical devices could run on a new kind of renewable energy: you.

The wearable, which is called a thermoelectric generator (TEG), directly turns your body’s heat into electrical energy. While the University of Colorado (CU) Boulder scientists behind the stretchable device tested their TEG in the form of a small ring, the tiny generator could theoretically be the size of a watch or full sleeve, depending on how much power you want to generate.


https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a35533572/body-heat-battery/
 
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He's doing some interesting things, and certainly pushing affordable rocket R&D.

And original thinking and execution. Reusable rockets.
 
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Airliner Encountered Unidentified Fast-Moving Cylindrical Object Over New Mexico

American Airlines Flight 2292, an Airbus A320 flying between Cincinnati and Phoenix on February 21st, 2021, had a bizarre close encounter with what its crew described as a "long cylindrical object that almost looked like a cruise missile" moving extremely fast over the top of their aircraft as it cruised along at 36,000 feet and 400 knots. The incident occurred over the remote northeast corner of New Mexico, to the west of the tiny town of
Des Moines.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...ast-moving-cylindrical-object-over-new-mexico


Make of this what you will, but the most obvious explanation is the most likely, and that is that it WAS a missile of sorts. It's New Mexico after all, home to USAF testing.
 
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Scientists May Have Just Solved The Long-Standing Mystery of Earth's 'Missing Ice'

It should be simple. When temperatures on Earth get hotter, huge amounts of water ice trapped in giant glaciers begin to thaw, releasing water into the oceans, and causing sea levels to rise. It's the story of our lives.

By contrast, when global temperatures plummet, which happens during ice ages, sea levels proceed to drop, as water content retreats from the ocean, freezing once more in huge inland ice sheets.

This epic, ongoing cycle of ice ebb and flow – the transitions from glacials to interglacials – has been occurring since time immemorial. But there's a problem.

For years now, scientists tracking these cycles have suggested there's a "missing ice" problem: a mysterious discrepancy between very low sea levels roughly 20,000 years ago, and the volume of ice stored in glaciers at the same time.

At its heart, the problem is this. During the peak of Earth's last ice age – the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), which ended approximately 20,000 years ago – sea level is thought to have been about 130 metres (427 ft) lower than it is today, based on ancient coral sediment evidence.

But modelling suggests ice volume in glaciers at this point in time wasn't great enough to explain such a low sea level. So how can we explain this 'missing' ice?

https://www.sciencealert.com/scient...y-of-where-earth-s-missing-ice-disappeared-to
 
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Facebook over-enforced Australia news ban, admits Nick Clegg

Facebook “erred on the side of over-enforcement” in removing links to hundreds of non-media organisations in Australia, Nick Clegg has admitted, in a blogpost defending the social media company’s short-lived news ban there.

The former UK deputy prime minister, now Facebook’s vice-president of global affairs and communications, said the tech firm had been “forced into [the] position” of blocking content designated as news after the Australian government refused to back down over plans to require it to negotiate with news publishers for payment for content.

But in his first significant public intervention on the controversy, Clegg acknowledged that public service content including health department and emergency services sites, family violence support information, and community news hubs should not have been caught up in the ban. While some pages were quickly restored, others had been expected to take up to a week to even be reviewed, before the ban was rescinded on Tuesday.

“It wasn’t a decision taken lightly,” he wrote in a post headlined The Real Story of What Happened With News on Facebook in Australia. “But when it came, we had to take action quickly because it was legally necessary to do so before the new law came into force, and so we erred on the side of over-enforcement. In doing so, some content was blocked inadvertently. Much of this was, thankfully, reversed quickly.”

https://www.theguardian.com/technol...enforced-australia-news-ban-admits-nick-clegg




Personally, I don't buy the excuse that they "had to take action quickly" because FB knew back in August that these media-laws were coming into effect.

Without warning, on the eve of the Australian Covid vaccine rollout, they pulled down government, health and emergency pages.

Update: The Australian media code was passed into law today.
https://www.9news.com.au/national/m...ves-vote/1fc34014-b0bd-420c-adb2-d90f539b6392
 
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Asteroid dust found in crater closes case of dinosaur extinction

https://phys.org/news/2021-02-asteroid-crater-case-dinosaur-extinction.html

"Researchers believe they have closed the case of what killed the dinosaurs, definitively linking their extinction with an asteroid that slammed into Earth 66 million years ago by finding a key piece of evidence: asteroid dust inside the impact crater.

Death by asteroid rather than by a series of volcanic eruptions or some other global calamity has been the leading hypothesis since the 1980s, when scientists found asteroid dust in the geologic layer that marks the extinction of the dinosaurs. This discovery painted an apocalyptic picture of dust from the vaporized asteroid and rocks from impact circling the planet, blocking out the sun and bringing about mass death through a dark, sustained global winter—all before drifting back to Earth to form the layer enriched in asteroid material that's visible today."
 
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Airliner Encountered Unidentified Fast-Moving Cylindrical Object Over New Mexico

American Airlines Flight 2292, an Airbus A320 flying between Cincinnati and Phoenix on February 21st, 2021, had a bizarre close encounter with what its crew described as a "long cylindrical object that almost looked like a cruise missile" moving extremely fast over the top of their aircraft as it cruised along at 36,000 feet and 400 knots. The incident occurred over the remote northeast corner of New Mexico, to the west of the tiny town of
Des Moines.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...ast-moving-cylindrical-object-over-new-mexico


Make of this what you will, but the most obvious explanation is the most likely, and that is that it WAS a missile of sorts. It's New Mexico after all, home to USAF testing.
Still waiting for the day when one of those ultra-fast "long cylindrical objects" and "UFOs" stops and takes the time to say "Hi". At least after such a long travel from outer planets or even galaxies, they deserve to shake hands and take a drink! :xf.grin:

Now seriously, about the strange encounter, it's good to point out this: "That being said, we need to point out that the Mount Dora Military Operating Area (MOA) is in that area".
 
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Asteroid dust found in crater closes case of dinosaur extinction

https://phys.org/news/2021-02-asteroid-crater-case-dinosaur-extinction.html

"Researchers believe they have closed the case of what killed the dinosaurs, definitively linking their extinction with an asteroid that slammed into Earth 66 million years ago by finding a key piece of evidence: asteroid dust inside the impact crater.

Death by asteroid rather than by a series of volcanic eruptions or some other global calamity has been the leading hypothesis since the 1980s, when scientists found asteroid dust in the geologic layer that marks the extinction of the dinosaurs. This discovery painted an apocalyptic picture of dust from the vaporized asteroid and rocks from impact circling the planet, blocking out the sun and bringing about mass death through a dark, sustained global winter—all before drifting back to Earth to form the layer enriched in asteroid material that's visible today."

Interesting.

https://www.livescience.com/dinosaur-killing-comet-oort-cloud.html

They propose it was a comet pulled in by Jupiter's gravity.
 
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Still waiting for the day when one of those ultra-fast "long cylindrical objects" and "UFOs" stops and takes the time to say "Hi". At least after such a long travel from outer planets or even galaxies, they deserve to shake hands and take a drink! :xf.grin:

Now seriously, about the strange encounter, it's good to point out this: "That being said, we need to point out that the Mount Dora Military Operating Area (MOA) is in that area".

It's entirely feasible that this could have been a privately manufactured vehicle.

I posted an article a few days ago about a prototype flying car straying 8000ft up into the airspace at Gatwick airport after the designers lost control of it.

We are going to witness more of these 'close encounters' as rocket and jet technology becomes more readily available to the public.
 
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New study suggests supermassive black holes could form from dark matter

https://phys.org/news/2021-02-supermassive-black-holes-dark.html

"A new theoretical study has proposed a novel mechanism for the creation of supermassive black holes from dark matter. The international team find that rather than the conventional formation scenarios involving 'normal' matter, supermassive black holes could instead form directly from dark matter in high density regions in the centers of galaxies. The result has key implications for cosmology in the early Universe, and is published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Standard formation models involve normal baryonic matter—the atoms and elements that that make up stars, planets, and all visible objects—collapsing under gravity to form black holes, which then grow over time. However the new work investigates the potential existence of stable galactic cores made of dark matter, and surrounded by a diluted dark matter halo, finding that the centers of these structures could become so concentrated that they could also collapse into supermassive black holes once a critical threshold is reached."
 
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Earliest human ancestors may have swung on branches like chimps


Our distant ancestors may have swung from branches and knuckle-walked like a chimpanzee – challenging recent thinking that the earliest hominins did neither. That is the conclusion of an analysis of 4.4-million-year-old Ardipithecus ramidus, thought to be one of the earliest known hominins.

In popular thinking, humans are often imagined to have evolved from a chimpanzee-like ape, but many researchers now challenge this idea – particularly in light of fossil evidence from A. ramidus that was published in 2009. One well-preserved individual – nicknamed Ardi – had bones that suggested it typically walked along branches like a monkey rather than swinging below them like a chimp. This hinted that our last common ancestor with chimps also walked along branches, and that chimps evolved to swing and knuckle-walk after they branched off from hominins.

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Thomas C. Prang at Texas A&M University and his colleagues disagree with this conclusion. They have taken the measurements of Ardi’s hands reported in 2009 and compared them with 416 measurements from hands across 53 species of living primates, including chimpanzees, bonobos and humans.

The analysis of this hand, one of the earliest hands in the human fossil record, suggests that it is chimpanzee-like, implying that both humans and chimps evolved from an ancestor that was chimp-like,” says Prang.
 
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