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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.
Lotus 1-2-3.

Hearing that name after a couple of decades.:xf.grin:
 
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Thanks for the nice documentary @CraigD

The related YouTube suggestions ensure that my day will be fully planned with watching videos about computer history again (y):unsure:

When I was taking lessons in Lotus 1-2-3, a fellow student asked me if I had a calculator for him, because he wanted to calculate something for another subject. I explained to him that the spreadsheet program was in fact one big calculator and that he was sitting in front of it at the time. Sometimes you have become so intimate familiar with a certain technology that you have to get used to new ways of working.

Only later would it become apparent what influence spreadsheets have had in taking humanity just one step further: administering the most beautiful domain names in the world, accompanied by prices and expiration dates, and a lot of other interesting data and analysis.

You've just linked to my next few months worth of 'computer history' content for this thread ;)

I was just having a giggle at this:

How to send an 'E mail' - Database - 1984


'Easy', eh?
 
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The sound of the program being sent over a modem in the credits of that last video reminded me of this:

How old school cassette tape drives worked




I was lucky enough to have one of these tape drives for my Commodore 64 when I was a kid. Every so often when I had enough pocket money, I'd buy a Commodore programming magazine, and spend hours typing out the code for a game and then save it onto an audio tape.

LOL, the games still took for ever to load.
 
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'I was terrible at crosswords so I built an AI to do them'

Matt Ginsberg is good at a lot of things - he is an AI scientist, author, playwright, magician and stunt plane pilot. But he isn't very good at crosswords.

In fact, despite writing them for the New York Times, he says that when they are published, he often cannot solve his own.

So when he was sitting in a hotel ballroom losing yet again in a major US crossword competition, he decided to do something about it.

"I was with 700 people who were really good at solving crossword puzzles and it annoyed me that I was so terrible, so I decided to write a computer program that would get even on my behalf," he told the BBC.

And finally he did. After 10 failed attempts, Dr Fill - as the program is known - has just won its first competition.

Read on...

https://au.news.yahoo.com/terrible-crosswords-built-ai-them-232438118.html
 
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Starship SN15 may fly today.

I understand there is an 8 hour launch window that begins about three hours from now.

LIVE: Starship SN15 Flight Test


SpaceX is performing a test flight of Starship SN15. The prototype will aim to be the first Starship vehicle to softly land during a high altitude flight test. Like the previous Starship prototypes, SN15 is expected to fly to approximately 10 kilometers.
 
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Scientists discover likely source of the moon’s faint yellow tail

First discovered almost 23 years ago, the tail was eventually shown to be a flood of atoms coming off the moon. But what was releasing them remained a mystery

The team looked at images of a brighter-than-normal part of the tail taken from an observatory in Argentina between 2006 and 2019. That period is longer than a complete 11-year cycle of sunspot activity. So the images should have been able to detect any link between the tail’s brightness and changes in the solar wind or solar flares. In fact, no such links emerged.



1030_moons_tail_data_inline.jpg



What did show up was a tie between the brightness of the sodium tail and meteor activity. The Earth and its natural satellite should experience the same meteor activity, Baumgardner points out. But while Earth is largely shielded by a thick atmosphere, the moon’s atmosphere is too thin to keep most micrometeorites from reaching the surface.

The Boston group described their findings in the March Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.

 
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Scientists Resurrect Mysterious Judean Date Palms From Biblical Era

Methuselah the tree was grown from a 2,000-year-old seed found at Masada. Now more have been grown and genetic analysis finds a twist in the origin story of the ‘Judean date’.


1319336866.jpg



Reincarnating an extinct species by using cloned DNA extraction from corpses or miraculously preserved ancient seeds has not happened yet. But now science has announced the resurrection of the “extinct population” of Judean date palms using all-but-miraculously preserved seeds from around 2,000 years ago.

They didn’t resurrect an extinct species, mark you. There is only one species of date and it’s not extinct.


This whole line of research began by wondering what the dates of Judea, extolled in ancient literature, were like. Now we know, because the team also carried out genetic analysis of this resurrected vegetation, Muriel Gros-Balthazard, Khaled Hazzouri, Sylvie Ferrand and Jonathan Flowers of the New York University outlet in Abu Dhabi, Frederique Aberlenc of the University of Montpellier, Sarah Sallon of the Hadassah Medical Organization and Michael Purugganan of NYU New York reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday.

“The Judean date palms are, as of now, an overarching term that refers to date palms grown in the region during Classical times. What is unclear is if they represent a distinct variety,” Prof. Purugganan explains.
 
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Scientists Resurrect Mysterious Judean Date Palms From Biblical Era

Methuselah the tree was grown from a 2,000-year-old seed found at Masada. Now more have been grown and genetic analysis finds a twist in the origin story of the ‘Judean date’.


1319336866.jpg



Reincarnating an extinct species by using cloned DNA extraction from corpses or miraculously preserved ancient seeds has not happened yet. But now science has announced the resurrection of the “extinct population” of Judean date palms using all-but-miraculously preserved seeds from around 2,000 years ago.

They didn’t resurrect an extinct species, mark you. There is only one species of date and it’s not extinct.


This whole line of research began by wondering what the dates of Judea, extolled in ancient literature, were like. Now we know, because the team also carried out genetic analysis of this resurrected vegetation, Muriel Gros-Balthazard, Khaled Hazzouri, Sylvie Ferrand and Jonathan Flowers of the New York University outlet in Abu Dhabi, Frederique Aberlenc of the University of Montpellier, Sarah Sallon of the Hadassah Medical Organization and Michael Purugganan of NYU New York reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday.

“The Judean date palms are, as of now, an overarching term that refers to date palms grown in the region during Classical times. What is unclear is if they represent a distinct variety,” Prof. Purugganan explains.

A fitting name?

In Genesis, Methuselah was a biblical patriarch and a figure in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Having died at the age of 969, he lived the longest of all human figures mentioned in the Bible. According to the Book of Genesis, Methuselah was the son of Enoch, the father of Lamech, and the grandfather of Noah.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methuselah
 
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A fitting name?

In Genesis, Methuselah was a biblical patriarch and a figure in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Having died at the age of 969, he lived the longest of all human figures mentioned in the Bible. According to the Book of Genesis, Methuselah was the son of Enoch, the father of Lamech, and the grandfather of Noah.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methuselah


I forgot the old testament stories.
 
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I forgot the old testament stories.

There's another tree named Methuselah, in California.

Methuselah is a 4,852-year-old Great Basin bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva) tree growing high in the White Mountains of Inyo County in eastern California. It is recognized as the non-clonal tree with the greatest confirmed age in the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methuselah_(tree)


Here's a documentary about it

The Curse Of The Methuselah Tree | Oldest Tree On Earth | Timeline

 
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What Did Hubble See on Your Birthday?

Hubble explores the universe 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. That means it has observed some fascinating cosmic wonder every day of the year, including on your birthday.

What did Hubble look at on your birthday? Enter the month and date below to find out!


https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/what-did-hubble-see-on-your-birthday



Then share the results with your friends on social media using #Hubble30.
 
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The science of picky shoppers

New research defines what it means to be a picky shopper — and what it means for businesses

There are hard-to-please customers in almost every industry, with certain people being picky about which clothes, houses and even romantic partners they will consider.

A new series of studies has found that shopper pickiness can go beyond shopping for the “best” option. The researchers define what it means to be “picky” and also developed a scale for measuring shopper pickiness.

Margaret Meloy, department chair and professor of marketing at Penn State, said the findings could help companies devise the best strategies for satisfying their pickier customers.

Meloy added that even the most robust promotional strategies, like offering a free gift with purchase, may fail with picky customers.

Previous research has found that about 40% of people have family or friends they would consider “picky,” suggesting the trait is common. The researchers said it might be helpful for retailers to have a better understanding of what being “picky” means for their customer base, and what those customers may need from a product or shopping experience.
 
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We have reached 100,000 views!

A big thank you to all contributing members and readers.



Here are some fun facts about the number 100,000.

100,000 (one hundred thousand) is an even six-digits composite number following 99999 and preceding 100001.

In scientific notation, it is written as 1 × 105.

The sum of its digits is 1.

The number 100,000 is divisible by 2, 4, 5 and 8.

The full list of divisors is: 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 10, 16, 20, 25, 32, 40, 50, 80, 100, 125, 160, 200, 250, 400, 500, 625, 800, 1000, 1250, 2000, 2500, 3125, 4000, 5000, 6250, 10000, 12500, 20000, 25000, 50000, 100000.

It has a total of 10 prime factors and 36 positive divisors. There are 40,000 positive integers (up to 100000) that are relatively prime to 100000.

The number 100,000 can be divided by 36 positive divisors (out of which 30 are even, and 6 are odd). The sum of these divisors (counting 100,000) is 246,078, the average is 683,5.5.

There are 40,000 positive integers (less than 100,000) that are coprime with 100,000. And there are approximately 9,564 prime numbers less than or equal to 100,000.

For more fun facts about the number 100,000, visit https://metanumbers.com/100000

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

Synthesia counts from 0 to 100,000

 
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Thanks @CraigD for this thread! And to the others who regularly post content.
 
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We have reached 100,000 views!

A big thank you to all contributing members and readers.

Thank you for starting it @CraigD. A lot of it is over my head, but I enjoy scrolling through all the posts. I love the passion for science the regular contributors display ... we could use more thoughtful, knowledgeable folks to keep humanity intact.
 
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Why do Americans die earlier than Europeans?

A 30-year-old American is three times more likely to die at that age than his or her European peers. In fact, Americans do worse at just about every age. To make matters more grim, the American disadvantage is growing over time.

In 2017, for example, higher American mortality translated into roughly 401,000 excess deaths – deaths that would not have occurred if the US had Europe’s lower age-specific death rates. Pre-pandemic, that 401,000 is about 12% of all American deaths. The percentage is even higher below age 85, where one in four Americans die simply because they do not live in Europe.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/04/why-do-americans-die-earlier-than-europeans
 
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Forget Stonehenge: the first known massive monuments are much older

The Arabian Peninsula is dotted with hundreds of mysterious structures dating to the sixth millennium BC.

d41586-021-01158-w_19117294.jpg


Cattle herders on the Arabian Peninsula built the world’s first large-scale monuments some 7,000 years ago, more than 4 millennia before the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids or Stonehenge rose on Britain’s plains.

The structures are called mustatils, the Arabic word for rectangle, in reference to the characteristic shape of the open courtyard at their centre. Melissa Kennedy and her colleagues at the University of Western Australia in Perth documented more than 1,000 mustatils that are scattered over a 200,000-square-kilometre area of the desert in modern-day Saudi Arabia. Built with local stone and often hundreds of metres long, they appear singly at some sites and in groups at others. Most have a narrow entrance way at one end.


urn:cambridge.org:id:binary-alt:20210424142024-91084-mediumThumb-S0003598X2100051X_fig7.jpg



The team excavated one site and found horns and bone fragments from cattle, gazelle and sheep. An analysis of the remains, which seem to be ritual offerings, dates the site to the sixth millennium BC.

The bigger mustatils would have taken thousands of hours to construct, suggesting that people of the day were organizing and building collectively.

 
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Mexico City metro: Fears structural failure behind deadly crash

Mexican authorities have promised a full investigation into the collapse of a metro overpass in Mexico City, as questions mount over the line's safety.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said "nothing would be hidden" while the mayor said an external company would be involved in the inquiry.

The elevated track on Line 12 fell on to a road, killing at least 24 people.

Concerns over possible structural failures had been raised since the line was inaugurated, in 2012.

There were concerns about design problems and construction standards, as well as allegations of corruption.

_118316565_before_after-nc.png


Read on...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-56985164



Video captures moment of train bridge collapse in Mexico

 
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The Leaning Tower Of Pisa: Italy’s Legendary Architectural Mistake | Massive Engineering Mistakes

Did you know that The Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy was actually the result of a human mistake? Just one minor miscalculation made in the 11th century left us with an amazing 14,500-tonne leaning tower. Find out how this mishap came about here.




More information:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaning_Tower_of_Pisa
 
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Forget Stonehenge: the first known massive monuments are much older

The Arabian Peninsula is dotted with hundreds of mysterious structures dating to the sixth millennium BC.

d41586-021-01158-w_19117294.jpg


Cattle herders on the Arabian Peninsula built the world’s first large-scale monuments some 7,000 years ago, more than 4 millennia before the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids or Stonehenge rose on Britain’s plains.

The structures are called mustatils, the Arabic word for rectangle, in reference to the characteristic shape of the open courtyard at their centre. Melissa Kennedy and her colleagues at the University of Western Australia in Perth documented more than 1,000 mustatils that are scattered over a 200,000-square-kilometre area of the desert in modern-day Saudi Arabia. Built with local stone and often hundreds of metres long, they appear singly at some sites and in groups at others. Most have a narrow entrance way at one end.


urn:cambridge.org:id:binary-alt:20210424142024-91084-mediumThumb-S0003598X2100051X_fig7.jpg



The team excavated one site and found horns and bone fragments from cattle, gazelle and sheep. An analysis of the remains, which seem to be ritual offerings, dates the site to the sixth millennium BC.

The bigger mustatils would have taken thousands of hours to construct, suggesting that people of the day were organizing and building collectively.

These cattle fences made me think of the Aboriginal fish traps that some suggest may be the earliest man made structures.


1181.jpg


Whatever their age, there is a history of Australasian fishing and aquaculture enterprises that go back to the first settlement of Australasia.

A couple of articles and resources:

Indigenous customary fishing and aquaculture enterprises
https://www.agriculture.gov.au/abar...genous-customary-fishing-and-aquaculture-2018

Brewarrina Aboriginal Fish Traps
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewarrina_Aboriginal_Fish_Traps

The fish traps at Brewarrina are extraordinary and ancient structures. Why aren't they better protected?
The Ngunnhu traps on the Barwon river were once a great gathering site for Indigenous people, but their present custodians say damage and neglect since white settlement is a shameful blot on Australia’s heritage record
https://www.theguardian.com/austral...a-extraordinary-ancient-structures-protection



School of fish: how we involved Indigenous students in our investigation of a 65,000-year-old site
https://theconversation.com/school-...nvestigation-of-a-65-000-year-old-site-144577
 
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Artemis Program Missions

A list of NASA's Artemis Program planned and proposed missions to the Moon.

There are currently over 40 launches proposed within the decade, including commercial support missions involving many countries and institutions.

Watch this space for updates as they become available.

Artemis program missions
https://www.artemisprogram.com/missions.html

Artemis program news
https://www.artemisprogram.com/index.html



What is Artemis


This video is a year old - SpaceX's Starship HLS has since been selected as the Human Landing System that will depart from the Gateway space station in orbit around the Moon, and ferry astronauts to and from the lunar surface.



3, 2, 1... Lift-Off of the Artemis 1 Mission to the Moon


The launch sequence for the Artemis I uncrewed test-flight to the Moon, scheduled for November 2021.



Further information:
https://www.nasa.gov/artemisprogram
https://www.nasa.gov/specials/artemis/
 
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Antibiotic Resistance Is Spreading From People To Chimpanzees

Nearly half of fecal samples from wild chimpanzees contain bacteria that is resistant to a major class of antibiotics people commonly use in the vicinity of Gombe National Park in Tanzania, according to new research.



“Our results suggest that antibiotic-resistant bacteria is actually spreading from people to non-human primates by making its way into the local watershed,” says senior author Thomas Gillespie, an associate professor in Emory University’s environmental sciences department and Rollins School of Public Health.

“People are bathing and washing in the streams, contaminating the water with drug-resistant bacteria where wild chimpanzees and baboons drink.”


baby-chimpanzee-closeup-portrait-at-a-wildlife-reserve-in-india-picture-id642729812


The researchers tested for genes conferring resistance to sulfonamides—drugs people in the region often use to treat diarrheal diseases—in fecal samples from humans, domestic animals, chimpanzees, and baboons in and around Gombe National Park. They also tested stream water used by these groups.

Sulfonamide resistance appeared in 74% of the human samples overall, 48% of chimpanzee samples, 34% of baboon samples, and 17% of the domestic animal samples. Sulfonamide also showed up in 19% of the samples taken from streams shared by people, domestic animals, and wildlife.

The researchers also tested all the groups in the study for genes conferring resistance to tetracycline—another class of antibiotics that people in the vicinity use much less frequently, likely due to its greater expense and the fact that it is less available in the area. As expected, very few of the fecal samples from any of the groups, and none of the water samples from the streams, showed evidence of tetracycline resistance.
 
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