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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.
Reply #3000 in this thread.

Interesting science history from WW2.



On Sept. 2, 1945, an American Navy squadron came ashore at Sagami Bay near Yokohama to demilitarize the Japanese midget submarines in the area. They found this notice on the door of a marine biological research station there, left by embryologist Katsuma Dan.

The Americans honored his wish: On the last of 1945 he was summoned by an officer of the U.S. First Cavalry and handed a document releasing the station back to the University of Tokyo.




2018-02-26-plea.jpg




Source: https://woodsholemuseum.org/oldpages/sprtsl/v30n2-lastone.pdf
 
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Jindo Sea Parting: Science Behind the 'Magic'

Hundreds of thousands of locals and foreign tourists gather at the southern tip of the Korean Peninsula every year for the Jindo Sea-Parting Festival. The event, which this year started on Thursday and runs through Sunday, celebrates a natural phenomenon in which the Jindo Sea—the northern portion of the East China Sea—opens up just enough to reveal a 1.8-mile (2.9-kilometer) pathway connecting South Korea's Jindo Island to the nearby island of Modo.

For the hour that the path is visible at its peak time on each of the four festival days, visitors take leisurely walks to Modo Island while the locals dig around for clams and seaweed. Although there is only one annual festival, the water parts two to three times a year between March and June.

The parting of the Jindo Sea was brought to the wider world's attention in 1975 by former French Ambassador to South Korea Pierre Landy, who called it the Korean version of Moses' miracle in a French newspaper, referring to the biblical parting of the Red Sea.

But far from miraculous, the Jindo Sea parting is likely the result of extreme low tides caused by a phenomena known as tidal harmonics.


 
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Isaac Newton's Confessions.

Despite Newton's career in thinking about the universe and his enormous contributions to the world, the bulk of the items he listed are seemingly inconsequential. A reminder that the daily anxities of our inner worlds never totally goes away; even the most accomplished of us are still just mortals.


Before Whitsunday 1662

1. Vsing the word (God) openly
2. Eating an apple at Thy house
3. Making a feather while on Thy day
4. Denying that I made it.
5. Making a mousetrap on Thy day
6. Contriving of the chimes on Thy day
7. Squirting water on Thy day
8. Making pies on Sunday night
9. Swimming in a kimnel on Thy day
10. Putting a pin in Iohn Keys hat on Thy day to pick him.
11. Carelessly hearing and committing many sermons
12. Refusing to go to the close at my mothers command.
13. Threatning my father and mother Smith to burne them and the house over them
14. Wishing death and hoping it to some
15. Striking many
16. Having uncleane thoughts words and actions and dreamese.
17. Stealing cherry cobs from Eduard Storer
18. Denying that I did so
19. Denying a crossbow to my mother and grandmother though I knew of it
20. Setting my heart on money learning pleasure more than Thee
21. A relapse
22. A relapse
23. A breaking again of my covenant renued in the Lords Supper.
24. Punching my sister
25. Robbing my mothers box of plums and sugar
26. Calling Dorothy Rose a jade
27. Glutiny in my sickness.
28. Peevishness with my mother.
29. With my sister.
30. Falling out with the servants
31. Divers commissions of alle my duties
32. Idle discourse on Thy day and at other times
33. Not turning nearer to Thee for my affections
34. Not living according to my belief
35. Not loving Thee for Thy self.
36. Not loving Thee for Thy goodness to us
37. Not desiring Thy ordinances
38. Not long {longing} for Thee in {illeg}
39. Fearing man above Thee
40. Vsing unlawful means to bring us out of distresses
41. Caring for worldly things more than God
42. Not craving a blessing from God on our honest endeavors.
43. Missing chapel.
44. Beating Arthur Storer.
45. Peevishness at Master Clarks for a piece of bread and butter.
46. Striving to cheat with a brass halfe crowne.
47. Twisting a cord on Sunday morning
48. Reading the history of the Christian champions on Sunday

Since Whitsunday 1662

49. Glutony
50. Glutony
51. Vsing Wilfords towel to spare my own
52. Negligence at the chapel.
53. Sermons at Saint Marys (4)
54. Lying about a louse
55. Denying my chamberfellow of the knowledge of him that took him for a sot.
56. Neglecting to pray 3
57. Helping Pettit to make his water watch at 12 of the clock on Saturday night

 
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Reply #3000 in this thread.

Interesting science history from WW2.



On Sept. 2, 1945, an American Navy squadron came ashore at Sagami Bay near Yokohama to demilitarize the Japanese midget submarines in the area. They found this notice on the door of a marine biological research station there, left by embryologist Katsuma Dan.

The Americans honored his wish: On the last of 1945 he was summoned by an officer of the U.S. First Cavalry and handed a document releasing the station back to the University of Tokyo.




2018-02-26-plea.jpg




Source: https://woodsholemuseum.org/oldpages/sprtsl/v30n2-lastone.pdf

A fitting post to mark 3000!

Thanks for your all your wonderful and informative posts @koolishman

I found some further information on Katsuma Dan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katsuma_Dan
https://www.mbl.edu/embryology/dan-lectureship/
 
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Illusion of the year contest.

The Best Illusion of the Year Contest is an annual recognition of the world's illusion creators awarded by the Neural Correlate Society.[1] The contest was created in 2005 by professors Susana Martinez-Conde[2] and Stephen Macknik[3] as part of the European conference on Visual Perception in La Coruna, Spain.[4] It has since transitioned to an online contest where everyone in the world is invited to submit illusions and vote for the winner.

The contest decides on the most impressive perceptual or cognitive illusion of the year (unpublished, or published no earlier than the year prior to the most recent competition). An illusion is a perceptual or cognitive experience that does not match the physical reality (i.e. the perception of motion where no such motion physically exists).


Kokichi Sugihara is a repeat winner 2010, 2018 & 2020







https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_Illusion_of_the_Year_Contest
 
1
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Isaac Newton's Confessions.

Despite Newton's career in thinking about the universe and his enormous contributions to the world, the bulk of the items he listed are seemingly inconsequential. A reminder that the daily anxities of our inner worlds never totally goes away; even the most accomplished of us are still just mortals.


Before Whitsunday 1662

1. Vsing the word (God) openly
2. Eating an apple at Thy house
3. Making a feather while on Thy day
4. Denying that I made it.
5. Making a mousetrap on Thy day
6. Contriving of the chimes on Thy day
7. Squirting water on Thy day
8. Making pies on Sunday night
9. Swimming in a kimnel on Thy day
10. Putting a pin in Iohn Keys hat on Thy day to pick him.
11. Carelessly hearing and committing many sermons
12. Refusing to go to the close at my mothers command.
13. Threatning my father and mother Smith to burne them and the house over them
14. Wishing death and hoping it to some
15. Striking many
16. Having uncleane thoughts words and actions and dreamese.
17. Stealing cherry cobs from Eduard Storer
18. Denying that I did so
19. Denying a crossbow to my mother and grandmother though I knew of it
20. Setting my heart on money learning pleasure more than Thee
21. A relapse
22. A relapse
23. A breaking again of my covenant renued in the Lords Supper.
24. Punching my sister
25. Robbing my mothers box of plums and sugar
26. Calling Dorothy Rose a jade
27. Glutiny in my sickness.
28. Peevishness with my mother.
29. With my sister.
30. Falling out with the servants
31. Divers commissions of alle my duties
32. Idle discourse on Thy day and at other times
33. Not turning nearer to Thee for my affections
34. Not living according to my belief
35. Not loving Thee for Thy self.
36. Not loving Thee for Thy goodness to us
37. Not desiring Thy ordinances
38. Not long {longing} for Thee in {illeg}
39. Fearing man above Thee
40. Vsing unlawful means to bring us out of distresses
41. Caring for worldly things more than God
42. Not craving a blessing from God on our honest endeavors.
43. Missing chapel.
44. Beating Arthur Storer.
45. Peevishness at Master Clarks for a piece of bread and butter.
46. Striving to cheat with a brass halfe crowne.
47. Twisting a cord on Sunday morning
48. Reading the history of the Christian champions on Sunday

Since Whitsunday 1662

49. Glutony
50. Glutony
51. Vsing Wilfords towel to spare my own
52. Negligence at the chapel.
53. Sermons at Saint Marys (4)
54. Lying about a louse
55. Denying my chamberfellow of the knowledge of him that took him for a sot.
56. Neglecting to pray 3
57. Helping Pettit to make his water watch at 12 of the clock on Saturday night

I imagine he was a man of his age who was conflicted with moral confusion and guilt due to his studies.

We have recently been learning more about his occult leanings, like his search for the Philosopher's Stone and the Elixer of Life.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton's_occult_studies
 
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Machine learning accelerates cosmological simulations

Using neural networks, researchers can now simulate universes in a fraction of the time, advancing the future of physics research

A universe evolves over billions upon billions of years, but researchers have developed a way to create a complex simulated universe in less than a day. The technique, published in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, brings together machine learning, high-performance computing and astrophysics and will help to usher in a new era of high-resolution cosmology simulations.

Cosmological simulations are an essential part of teasing out the many mysteries of the universe, including those of dark matter and dark energy. But until now, researchers faced the common conundrum of not being able to have it all - simulations could focus on a small area at high resolution, or they could encompass a large volume of the universe at low resolution.

Read on...

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-05/cmu-mla050421.php
 
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That Long March-5B Y2 that China launched last week is set to make an uncontrolled re-entry.

A Chinese rocket will make an uncontrolled reentry in the coming days

chinese-rocket.jpg


Recently China launched a Long March-5B Y2 rocket into space that carried its first space station module into orbit. While China hailed the launch as completely successful, it turns out something has gone wrong. The 21-ton core stage of the rocket is expected to make an uncontrolled reentry into Earth’s atmosphere in the next few days.

Authorities say the rocket is expected to fall back to the Earth in the next few days. Astronomer Jonathan McDowell, who tracks objects orbiting the Earth, said that it’s unacceptable to let an object reenter uncontrolled by current standards. He also pointed out that since 1990 nothing over 10 tons has been deliberately left in orbit in an uncontrolled manner. The Chinese rocket measures 100 feet long and 16 feet wide.

https://www.slashgear.com/a-chinese...ntrolled-reentry-in-the-coming-days-02671222/


Reminds me of when Skylab crashed into Australia in 1979. As a kid I was fearful it was going to crash through the roof of my bedroom, but missed me by about 1000km. LOL.

A large rocket stage which launched China’s first space station last week is likely to reenter the atmosphere around May 8 according to early space tracking predictions.

U.S. Department of Defense Spokesperson Mike Howard in a statement May 4 said that “U.S. Space Command is aware of and tracking the location of the Chinese Long March 5B in space, but its exact entry point into the Earth’s atmosphere cannot be pinpointed until within hours of its reentry, which is expected around May 8.

“Until then, the 18th Space Control Squadron will be offering daily updates to the rocket body’s location on www.space-track.org beginning May 4. We will provide additional information as it becomes available,” the statement read.

https://spacenews.com/chinese-rocket-stage-predicted-to-reenter-atmosphere-around-may-8/
 
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Dell just patched a driver security flaw dating from 2009

Five separate flaws have been discovered in Dell's DBUtil BIOS driver.

Dell has released a patch that addresses multiple vulnerabilities in its DBUtil BIOS driver after a security researcher found that the driver in question could be abused by an attacker to gain increased system privileges.

The vulnerable driver was first discovered by security research Kasif Dekel from SentinelLabs and the team informed the PC giant of its findings back in December of last year. According to the US-based cybersecurity firm, the driver has been vulnerable since 2009 though there is no evidence at this time that its flaws have been exploited in the wild.

The DBUtil BIOS driver comes pre-installed on many Dell laptops and desktops running Windows and is responsible for Dell Firmware Updates via the Dell BIOS Utility. It is estimated that hundreds of millions of devices from the company received the vulnerable driver through BIOS updates.

https://www.techradar.com/au/news/dell-just-patched-a-driver-security-flaw-dating-from-2009



In my opinion, once these security flaws are made public, you have to patch quickly because hackers have now been alerted to the issue and are looking for ways to exploit the vulnerability.
 
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A large rocket stage which launched China’s first space station last week is likely to reenter the atmosphere around May 8 according to early space tracking predictions.

U.S. Department of Defense Spokesperson Mike Howard in a statement May 4 said that “U.S. Space Command is aware of and tracking the location of the Chinese Long March 5B in space, but its exact entry point into the Earth’s atmosphere cannot be pinpointed until within hours of its reentry, which is expected around May 8.

“Until then, the 18th Space Control Squadron will be offering daily updates to the rocket body’s location on www.space-track.org beginning May 4. We will provide additional information as it becomes available,” the statement read.

https://spacenews.com/chinese-rocket-stage-predicted-to-reenter-atmosphere-around-may-8/


I remember "skylab falling" thing.
 
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Giant wood moth: ‘very heavy’ insect rarely seen by humans spotted at Australian school

Mammoth moth which can have 25cm wingspan found by builders working on Queensland primary school.

720.jpg


A giant moth with a wingspan measuring up to 25cm has been found at a Queensland school next to a rainforest.

Builders found the giant wood moth, the heaviest moth in the world, while constructing new classrooms at Mount Cotton state school.

Giant wood moths are found along the Queensland and New South Wales coast, according to the Queensland Museum. Females can weigh up to 30 grams and have a wingspan of up to 25cm. Males are half that size.

They have an extremely short life cycle with adults living only a matter of days. They die after mating and laying eggs.

Read on...

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...t-wood-moth-found-queensland-australia-school


More images and information:
https://arovingiwillgo.wordpress.com/2014/12/11/close-encounters-of-the-lepidopteran-kind/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/clouds_creek/8392188832/in/photostream/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/clouds_creek/8392188340/in/photostream/
 
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Mary Rose ship had multi-ethnic crew, study shows

Analysis of remains of crew on Henry VIII’s favourite warship sheds light on diversity in Tudor England

3500.jpg


One is thought to be an archer raised in the Atlas mountains in north Africa, and another may have been a carpenter who grew up in south-west Spain. Others hailed from closer to home, possibly the bustling ports of the English west country or the Thames estuary.

The most in-depth study yet of a group of men who drowned when Henry VIII’s favourite warship, the Mary Rose, sank off Portsmouth has provided fresh insight into the makeup of the crew, and the diverse nature of society in Tudor England.

5205.jpg


The Mary Rose sank on 19 July 1545 during the Battle of the Solent with the loss of most of its 415-strong crew.

In 1982 the ship was raised and the remains of at least 179 crew members were found, together with thousands of objects ranging from weaponry to tools and games.

The excellent preservation of the men’s skeletal remains and knowing the precise time and circumstances of their deaths has given scientists the chance to dig into the backgrounds of the crew.

Read on...

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/may/05/mary-rose-ship-multi-ethnic-crew-tudor-england



More information:
https://maryrose.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Rose
 
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Confused about NASA's Apollo and Saturn mission numbers?

This great video addresses the confusing nomenclature of the mission numbers.

The Lost Apollo 2 and Apollo 3 Missions





The video ends with the last Apollo moon mission, but wait... there's more!

If you are wondering what happened to Apollo missions numbered 18, 19, 20, they were cancelled.

The leftover Apollo 18 (SA-513) Saturn V booster was used to launch Skylab (SL-I) in 1975, while the boosters for Apollo 19 and 20 ended up on display.

Skylab was actually built from an empty Saturn IVB third stage rocket, with the three crewed launches to Skylab launched by the smaller Saturn IB boosters.


There was also another Apollo mission that flew without a mission number, and wasn't part of the Moon landing program...

330px-ASTP_patch.png


Apollo–Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) was the first crewed international space mission, carried out jointly by the United States and the Soviet Union in July 1975.

The American end of the project was a Saturn IB rocket carrying an un-numbered Apollo Command and Service Module spacecraft left over from the cancelled Apollo missions, and was the last piece of Apollo hardware to fly into space.

The Russians launched a Soyuz spacecraft and the two docked in space for 44 hours.


1920px-Apollo-soyuz.jpg

The Apollo–Soyuz display in the National Air and Space Museum

1280px-Astronaut_Donald_K._Slayton_and_cosmonaut_Aleksey_A._Leonov_in_the_Soyuz_Orbital_Module.jpg

Deke Slayton (right) with Leonov in the Soyuz spacecraft during the Apollo-Soyuz mission.
 
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Scientists Say You Can Have More Than 150 Friends, If You Want

759f073d75d9e030758b01a71949c69b-scaled.jpg


In the early 1990s, a British anthropologist named Robin Dunbar argued that humans can’t handle more than 150 stable relationships based on the size of the human brain’s neocortex and observations of other primate groups socialising. Now, a team of researchers in Sweden say that number is bunk.

The team argues that Dunbar’s number — really a set of numbers that define different circles of intimacy and their sizes, with the 150 number for casual friends being the most cited — is not a reasonable way of decrypting human sociality. Their study is published today in the journal Biology Letters.

Read on...

https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2021/05/scientists-say-you-can-have-more-than-150-friends-if-you-want/
 
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Disposable face masks release potentially dangerous chemical pollutants

Swansea University scientists have uncovered potentially dangerous chemical pollutants that are released from disposable face masks when submerged in water.

The research reveals high levels of pollutants, including lead, antimony, and copper, within the silicon-based and plastic fibres of common disposable face masks.

The work is supported by the Institute for Innovative Materials, Processing and Numerical Technologies (IMPACT) and the SPECIFIC Innovation & Knowledge Centre

Project lead Dr Sarper Sarp of Swansea University College of Engineering said:

"All of us need to keep wearing masks as they are essential in ending the pandemic. But we also urgently need more research and regulation on mask production, so we can reduce any risks to the environment and human health".

Outlined in a recent paper, the tests carried out by the research team used a variety of masks - from standard plain face masks to novelty and festive masks for children with many currently being sold in UK retail outlets.

The rise in single-use masks, and the associated waste, due to the COVID-19 pandemic has been documented as a new cause of pollution. The study aimed to explore this direct link - with investigations to identify the level of toxic substances present.

Read on...

https://www.news-medical.net/news/2...otentially-dangerous-chemical-pollutants.aspx
 
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Pea plants make smart investment decisions that could help inform sustainable agriculture

Researchers at the University of Oxford have shown that pea plants are able to make smart investment decisions when it comes to interactions with their symbiotic bacterial partners. Better understanding of how plants manage these interactions could help with the move towards sustainable agriculture.

thumbnail_Pea%20bacteria.png


The new research, published in PNAS, shows that a plant weighs up the different bacterial partners, and then only provides sugar to the best available strains; cutting off those that are less good. This means that the plant must be able to compare different strains and invest accordingly: a strain that looks like a good investment in one context, might be a poor choice in another.

Annet Westhoek at the Department of Plant Sciences, University of Oxford, who jointly led the work said: ‘The bacteria only start to supply nitrogen once they have been in the nodules for a few days, so the plant has to wait before it can decide how beneficial each bacterial strain will be.’

Globally, the biggest factor limiting plant growth is a lack of nitrogen, which makes up almost 80% of the Earth’s atmosphere. But plants simply can’t make use of nitrogen gas in the air. For this reason, legumes – the plant family that includes peas – have evolved a symbiotic relationship with soil bacteria called rhizobia, which convert nitrogen gas into a form that plants can use.

Pea plants host the bacteria in specialised root growths called nodules, but the bacteria demand sugar from the plant in return for the nitrogen that they supply.

\

 
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Isaac Newton's Confessions.

Despite Newton's career in thinking about the universe and his enormous contributions to the world, the bulk of the items he listed are seemingly inconsequential. A reminder that the daily anxities of our inner worlds never totally goes away; even the most accomplished of us are still just mortals.


Before Whitsunday 1662

1. Vsing the word (God) openly
2. Eating an apple at Thy house
3. Making a feather while on Thy day
4. Denying that I made it.
5. Making a mousetrap on Thy day
6. Contriving of the chimes on Thy day
7. Squirting water on Thy day
8. Making pies on Sunday night
9. Swimming in a kimnel on Thy day
10. Putting a pin in Iohn Keys hat on Thy day to pick him.
11. Carelessly hearing and committing many sermons
12. Refusing to go to the close at my mothers command.
13. Threatning my father and mother Smith to burne them and the house over them
14. Wishing death and hoping it to some
15. Striking many
16. Having uncleane thoughts words and actions and dreamese.
17. Stealing cherry cobs from Eduard Storer
18. Denying that I did so
19. Denying a crossbow to my mother and grandmother though I knew of it
20. Setting my heart on money learning pleasure more than Thee
21. A relapse
22. A relapse
23. A breaking again of my covenant renued in the Lords Supper.
24. Punching my sister
25. Robbing my mothers box of plums and sugar
26. Calling Dorothy Rose a jade
27. Glutiny in my sickness.
28. Peevishness with my mother.
29. With my sister.
30. Falling out with the servants
31. Divers commissions of alle my duties
32. Idle discourse on Thy day and at other times
33. Not turning nearer to Thee for my affections
34. Not living according to my belief
35. Not loving Thee for Thy self.
36. Not loving Thee for Thy goodness to us
37. Not desiring Thy ordinances
38. Not long {longing} for Thee in {illeg}
39. Fearing man above Thee
40. Vsing unlawful means to bring us out of distresses
41. Caring for worldly things more than God
42. Not craving a blessing from God on our honest endeavors.
43. Missing chapel.
44. Beating Arthur Storer.
45. Peevishness at Master Clarks for a piece of bread and butter.
46. Striving to cheat with a brass halfe crowne.
47. Twisting a cord on Sunday morning
48. Reading the history of the Christian champions on Sunday

Since Whitsunday 1662

49. Glutony
50. Glutony
51. Vsing Wilfords towel to spare my own
52. Negligence at the chapel.
53. Sermons at Saint Marys (4)
54. Lying about a louse
55. Denying my chamberfellow of the knowledge of him that took him for a sot.
56. Neglecting to pray 3
57. Helping Pettit to make his water watch at 12 of the clock on Saturday night

I'd read that Newton was an unsavoury man to be around, but I had not realised he was so violent. By his own confessions...

13. Threatning my father and mother Smith to burne them and the house over them
14. Wishing death and hoping it to some
15. Striking many
24. Punching my sister

44. Beating Arthur Storer.

...and he mentions quite a bit of thieving.
 
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Why Does Music Only Use 12 Different Notes?


Why does Western music divide the octave into 12 different notes? Why not 13, or 19 or 24 notes? For such a simple sounding question, the answer is actually a tangle of history, physics and human preference. Get ready for some serious music theory!
 
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Go master takes on AI - The DeepMind Challenge Match

AlphaGo - The Movie


With more board configurations than there are atoms in the universe, the ancient Chinese game of Go has long been considered a grand challenge for artificial intelligence. On March 9, 2016, the worlds of Go and artificial intelligence collided in South Korea for an extraordinary best-of-five-game competition, coined The DeepMind Challenge Match. Hundreds of millions of people around the world watched as a legendary Go master took on an unproven AI challenger for the first time in history.


Directed by Greg Kohs and with an original score by Academy Award nominee Hauschka, AlphaGo chronicles a journey from the halls of Oxford, through the backstreets of Bordeaux, past the coding terminals of DeepMind in London, and ultimately, to the seven-day tournament in Seoul. As the drama unfolds, more questions emerge: What can artificial intelligence reveal about a 3000-year-old game? What can it teach us about humanity?
 
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Scientists claim they discovered the “gate of consciousness”

THE BRAIN is constantly sorting through an endless barrage of sensory stimuli. In the same five minutes, you could be navigating your way through a crush of pedestrians, while calling the office, picking up your dog’s doo-doo, and keeping an eye on that the driver who’s sure to blow through a stop sign.

Because we can’t possibly absorb every single stimulus, our brain lets some of these signals filter through to our consciousness while others don’t.

59761478-1e07-49e8-80f3-dd71409cc34f-brains.jpeg


Researchers at the University of Michigan Medical School set out to answer this question. Their study, published Tuesday in Cell Reports, suggests they’ve found the answer.

“The findings reveal a gateway in the cortex where sensory information has to pass through in order to reach its destination (conscious access),” co-author Zirui Huang, tells Inverse. Huang is a research investigator at the University of Michigan Medical School.
 
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The Battery That's Lasted 176 Years

In a laboratory at Oxford University sits the Oxford Electric Bell, which has spent 176 years constantly ringing. And no-one's quite sure what the battery that powers it is made of...

 
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Scientist Creates Amazing Famous Faces From Bacteria

A group of scientists have successfully created a masterpiece of the Mona Lisa using around one million genetically-modified pieces of bacteria.

mona_lisa.jpg


Researchers from Rome University modified the E. Coli cells so that they would swiftly swim in response to light patterns, eventually grouping to replicate the famous da Vinci masterpiece.

In a similar experiment, E. coli cells moved from a portrait of Albert Einstein to create an image of Charles Darwin.

The team genetically-modified E. coli cells so that th
ey would contain a protein called proteorhodopsin, which is found in ocean-dwelling bacteria, causing them to respond to light.

 
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Sheep are able to recognise human faces from photographs

Sheep can be trained to recognise human faces from photographic portraits – and can even identify the picture of their handler without prior training – according to new research from scientists at the University of Cambridge.


 
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Wasn't Chernobyl buried under tons of concrete and steel?


Apparently that has degraded and they are now building a new sarcophagus to move over the old one.

1280px-1121-Txernobylgo_zentral_nuklearrerako_sarkofago_berria-en.svg.png


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


‘It’s like the embers in a barbecue pit.’ Nuclear reactions are smoldering again at Chernobyl

Thirty-five years after the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine exploded in the world’s worst nuclear accident, fission reactions are smoldering again in uranium fuel masses buried deep inside a mangled reactor hall. “It’s like the embers in a barbecue pit,” says Neil Hyatt, a nuclear materials chemist at the University of Sheffield. Now, Ukrainian scientists are scrambling to determine whether the reactions will wink out on their own—or require extraordinary interventions to avert another accident.


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Sensors are tracking a rising number of neutrons, a signal of fission, streaming from one inaccessible room, Anatolii Doroshenko of the Institute for Safety Problems of Nuclear Power Plants (ISPNPP) in Kyiv, Ukraine, reported last week during discussions about dismantling the reactor. “There are many uncertainties,” says ISPNPP’s Maxim Saveliev. “But we can’t rule out the possibility of [an] accident.” The neutron counts are rising slowly, Saveliev says, suggesting managers still have a few years to figure out how to stifle the threat. Any remedy he and his colleagues come up with will be of keen interest to Japan, which is coping with the aftermath of its own nuclear disaster 10 years ago at Fukushima, Hyatt notes. “It’s a similar magnitude of hazard.”
 
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