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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.
Australia’s mouse plague: six months ago it was war, now whole towns have accepted their presence

Farmers and residents in NSW and Queensland are still battling surging rodent numbers but they fear the ordeal will stretch on for months.

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When the mouse plague began in regional New South Wales and Queensland, residents spoke like generals in a war. It was all about strategy, setting the cleverest traps, fortifying houses to keep the enemy out and outsmarting the tiny creatures as they attacked wave after wave.

But, six months on, with rodent numbers surging again despite thousands of tonnes of poisons being deployed and devastating floods, conversations about mice have changed. They aren’t foes to be bested any more, they’re more like a giant dark cloud hovering over each town.

read on...

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...-now-whole-towns-have-accepted-their-presence
 
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Gazing Into a Diamond's Flaws Has Revealed Hidden Clues About How Our Planet Formed

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More than mere beautiful, coveted stones, diamonds hold another sort of wealth: fragments of Earth's deep history.

From flaws within the mineral's near-perfect lattice, scientists have just worked out how to extract long-hidden records of our planet's past.

"We like the ones that no one else really wants," said geochemist Yaakov Weiss from Columbia University, referring to the diamonds full of impurities that don't look as clear and shiny as those desired for jewelry.

These fibrous, dirty-looking gems are where tiny vaults of information lie, stuffed with messages from Earth's inner depths. The carbon structure of a perfect diamond doesn't contain enough radioisotopes to help researchers date it, but the microinclusions found in its flaws can.

These flaws can form tiny pockets that may encapsulate the chemicals from which the diamonds birthed.

Read on...

https://www.sciencealert.com/scient...-billion-year-old-history-written-in-diamonds
 
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Your Immune System Could Be Hurting You as a Way of Signalling to Others

A major debate during the pandemic, and in infectious disease research more broadly, is why infected people die. No virus "wants" to kill anyone, as an epidemiologist once said to me. Like any other form of life, a virus's goal is only to survive and reproduce.

A growing body of evidence instead suggests that the human immune system – which the science writer Ed Yong says is "where intuition goes to die" – may itself be responsible for many people's deaths.

In an effort to find and kill the invading virus, the body can harm major organs, including the lungs and heart. This has led some doctors to focus on attenuating an infected patient's immune response to help save them.

This brings up an evolutionary puzzle: what's the point of the immune system if its overzealousness can kill the same people it evolved to defend?

Read on...

https://www.sciencealert.com/our-bo...-evolved-as-a-way-to-tell-others-we-need-help
 
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You’re so vein: Scientists discover faster way to manufacture vascular materials

Developing self-healing materials is nothing new for Nancy Sottos, lead of the Autonomous Materials Systems Group at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Drawing inspiration from biological circulatory systems — such as blood vessels or the leaves on a tree — University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researchers have worked on developing vascularized structural composites for more than a decade, creating materials that are lightweight and able to self-heal and self-cool.

But now, a team of Beckman researchers led by Sottos and Mayank Garg, postdoctoral research associate and lead author of the newly published Nature Communications paper, “Rapid Synchronized Fabrication of Vascularized Thermosets and Composites,” have shortened a two-day manufacturing process to approximately two minutes by harnessing frontal polymerization of readily available resins.

Read on...

https://www.miragenews.com/youre-so-vein-scientists-discover-faster-way-to-560574/
 
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New research optimizes body’s own immune system to fight cancer

A groundbreaking study led by engineering and medical researchers at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities shows how engineered immune cells used in new cancer therapies can overcome physical barriers to allow a patient’s own immune system to fight tumors. The research could improve cancer therapies in the future for millions of people worldwide.

The research is published in Nature Communications, a peer-reviewed, open access, scientific journal published by Nature Research.

Instead of using chemicals or radiation, immunotherapy is a type of cancer treatment that helps the patient’s immune system fight cancer. T cells are a type of white blood cell that are of key importance to the immune system. Cytotoxic T cells are like soldiers who search out and destroy the targeted invader cells.

Read on...

https://www.miragenews.com/new-research-optimizes-bodys-own-immune-system-560514/
 
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Microfluidics: The tiny, beautiful tech hidden all around you

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By
Albert Folch, Professor of Bioengineering, University of Washington

When you think of micro- or nanotechnology, you likely think of small electronics like your phone, a tiny robot or a microchip.

But COVID-19 tests – which have proven to be central to controlling the pandemic – are also a form of miniaturized technology. Many COVID-19 tests can give results within hours without the need to send a sample to a lab, and most of these tests use an approach called microfluidics.

I am a professor of bioengineering and work with microfluidics for my research. Everything from pregnancy tests to glucose strips to inkjet printers to genetic tests rely on microfluidics. This technology, unbeknownst to many people, is everywhere and critical to many of the things that make the modern world go round.

What are microfluidics?

Microfluidic systems are any device that process minuscule amounts of liquids. The fluids travel through channels thinner than a hair, and tiny valves can turn the flow on and off. These channels are made of materials such as glass, polymers, paper or gels. One way to move fluids is with a mechanical pump; another way is to use the surface charges of certain materials; and yet another is to use the so-called capillary action – more commonly known as wicking. Wicking is the process by which the energy stored within the liquid propels the liquid through narrow spaces.

Read on...

https://theconversation.com/microfluidics-the-tiny-beautiful-tech-hidden-all-around-you-160436
 
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Cool thread @CraigD - going to have to spend some time reading through it :xf.smile:

Did a search and the below did not show up.......

Wooden satellite due for launch by end of 2021

https://eandt.theiet.org/content/ar...ng-wooden-satellite-to-launch-by-end-of-2021/

At the bottom of the article there is a link to another story about a record breaking Haggis :xf.laugh::ROFL:

https://eandt.theiet.org/content/ar...ars-edge-of-space-in-burns-night-celebration/

The site is pretty good - loads of information on new tech, science etc etc.......
 
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This is one of my favourite YouTube channels - originally found it for the children, but as time went on I started watching more and more of the videos myself......which has led to many many hours spent reading about the video content online

Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell

"Videos explaining things with optimistic nihilism. We are a small team who want to make science look beautiful. Because it is beautiful."

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsXVk37bltHxD1rDPwtNM8Q
 
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World is home to 50bn birds, ‘breakthrough’ citizen science research estimates

There are about 50 billion individual birds in the world, according to new research that uses citizen science observations to try to estimate population numbers for almost 10,000 species.

The paper, led by scientists at the University of New South Wales, suggests there are about six times as many birds on the planet as humans – but that many individual species are very rare.

Four species belong to what the researchers dubbed “the billion club”, with estimated populations greater than 1 billion. They are the house sparrow, found in many parts of the world, the European starling, the ring-billed gull and the barn swallow.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/science-technology-news-discussion.1212824/page-124#post-8277458
 
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An old antidepressant helps the immune system fight tumors in mice

Drugs that unleash the body’s immune system to attack tumors, known as checkpoint inhibitors, have put some cancer patients into remission for years. But many others don’t benefit from the treatments. Now, researchers have found that an old type of antidepressant boosts the power of these inhibitors in mice—and they suspect it could do the same in people.

It’s the “first study” to suggest such a role for the antidepressant, called a monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI), says biochemist Jean Chen Shih of the University of Southern California, who was not involved with the study but has long studied the MAO-A enzyme in the brain and, more recently, its role in cancer. She adds that the new combination therapy could benefit cancer patients who don’t respond to a widely used type of checkpoint inhibitor known as anti–PD-1 drugs.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/05/old-antidepressant-helps-immune-system-fight-tumors-mice
 
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World is home to 50bn birds, ‘breakthrough’ citizen science research estimates

There are about 50 billion individual birds in the world, according to new research that uses citizen science observations to try to estimate population numbers for almost 10,000 species.

The paper, led by scientists at the University of New South Wales, suggests there are about six times as many birds on the planet as humans – but that many individual species are very rare.

Four species belong to what the researchers dubbed “the billion club”, with estimated populations greater than 1 billion. They are the house sparrow, found in many parts of the world, the European starling, the ring-billed gull and the barn swallow.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/science-technology-news-discussion.1212824/page-124#post-8277458

Think you may have posted the wrong link there @J Sokol :)

From Avocet to Zebra Finch: big data study finds more than 50 billion birds in the world

There are roughly 50 billion individual birds in the world, a new big data study by UNSW Sydney suggests – about six birds for every human on the planet.

https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/s...-data-study-finds-more-50-billion-birds-world
 
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Cool thread @CraigD - going to have to spend some time reading through it :xf.smile:

Did a search and the below did not show up.......

Wooden satellite due for launch by end of 2021

https://eandt.theiet.org/content/ar...ng-wooden-satellite-to-launch-by-end-of-2021/

At the bottom of the article there is a link to another story about a record breaking Haggis :xf.laugh::ROFL:

https://eandt.theiet.org/content/ar...ars-edge-of-space-in-burns-night-celebration/

The site is pretty good - loads of information on new tech, science etc etc.......

... where no Haggis has gone before.

I can just see the Simpson's screenwriters drooling over a future script.

 
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... where no Haggis has gone before.

I can just see the Simpson's screenwriters drooling over a future script.

:xf.laugh::ROFL: - it is a awful dish, had it a couple of times and never again :yuck:
 
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Amazon’s Ring is the largest civilian surveillance network the US has ever seen

In a 2020 letter to management, Max Eliaser, an Amazon software engineer, said Ring is “simply not compatible with a free society”. We should take his claim seriously.

Ring video doorbells, Amazon’s signature home security product, pose a serious threat to a free and democratic society. Not only is Ring’s surveillance network spreading rapidly, it is extending the reach of law enforcement into private property and expanding the surveillance of everyday life. What’s more, once Ring users agree to release video content to law enforcement, there is no way to revoke access and few limitations on how that content can be used, stored, and with whom it can be shared.

Ring is effectively building the largest corporate-owned, civilian-
installed surveillance network that the US has ever seen.

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...ring-largest-civilian-surveillance-network-us
 
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Twenty firms produce 55% of world’s plastic waste, report reveals

Twenty companies are responsible for producing more than half of all the single-use plastic waste in the world, fuelling the climate crisis and creating an environmental catastrophe, new research reveals.

Among the global businesses responsible for 55% of the world’s plastic packaging waste are both state-owned and multinational corporations, including oil and gas giants and chemical companies, according to a comprehensive new analysis.

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...uce-55-of-worlds-plastic-waste-report-reveals
 
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Galapagos rock formation Darwin's Arch has collapsed

(CNN) — One of the most famous rock formations in the Galapagos Islands has collapsed into the sea.
The top of Darwin's Arch, located in the northern part of the archipelago, fell as "a consequence of natural erosion," according to the Ministry of Environment for Ecuador.

Images of the structure, which now consists of just two pillars, were posted on the social media accounts for the ministry on Monday alongside a statement confirming the news.

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/galapagos-darwins-arch-collapses/index.html
 
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Just another study funded by Doctor Fauci

 
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‘Take it easy, nothing matters in the end’: On love, loss and Leonard Nimoy - an Interview with William Shatner at 90

“What are their expectations? That I’m Captain Kirk? Well, I am Captain Kirk! I don’t know what people mean when they talk about my persona. I’m just myself. If you’re not yourself, who are you?” :xf.wink:

https://www.theguardian.com/culture...shatner-interview-love-loss-and-leonard-nimoy

"And while in my lifetime I've seen science make extraordinary inroads into solving the most complex questions of life, after all this time I admit that I am thrilled that there are some things that forever will remain a mystery. For example, do I wear a toupee?" - William Shatner, Up Till Now: An Autobiography
 
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The climate crisis requires a new culture and politics, not just new tech

We are living through what scientists call the Anthropocene, a new geological age during which humans have become the dominant force shaping the natural environment. Many scientists date this new period to the post-second world war economic boom, the “great acceleration”. This rapid increase in our control over the Earth has brought us to the precipice of catastrophic climate change, triggered a mass extinction, disrupted our planet’s nitrogen cycles and acidified its oceans, among other things.

Our society has come to believe that technology is the solution. Electricity from renewable sources, energy-efficient buildings, electric vehicles and hydrogen fuels are among the many innovations that we hope will play a decisive role in reducing emissions. Most of the mainstream climate-change models now assume some degree of “negative emissions” in the future, relying on large-scale carbon capture technology, despite the fact that it is far from ready to be implemented. And if all else fails, the story goes, we can geoengineer the Earth.

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...ate-change-crisis-culture-politics-technology
 
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These Drums Beat in Perfect Synchrony Because They're Quantumly Entangled

Researchers can also use these drums to connect different quantum computers, said Lau. The drums could act as an intermediate node between two different quantum computers based on superconducting qubits, for example. A superconducting quantum computer, which encodes information in microwaves, could send that information to store in the vibrations of an array of drums. Those drums could then convert the information back into microwaves to send to another quantum computer over a long distance. This type of connection would form the basis of the “quantum internet,” a goal of physicists to create a network of quantum computers.

Kotler’s demonstration advances the tiny drums as a quantum computing technology, because his setup can produce entanglement on command. “You push a button, and it happens,” said Kotler. While other teams have entangled two drums in the past, they could not do it with the same consistency as Kotler.


https://gizmodo.com/these-drums-beat-in-perfect-synchrony-because-theyre-qu-1846868881
 
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The climate crisis requires a new culture and politics, not just new tech

And if all else fails, the story goes, we can geoengineer the Earth.

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...ate-change-crisis-culture-politics-technology

Great article! (y)

"... the problem with this narrative is that it focuses on the symptoms, not the causes of environmental decay. Even if the technologies on which we pin our hopes for the future deliver as expected and do not lead to much collateral damage – both of which are huge assumptions – they will not have fixed our mindsets. This is a crisis of culture and politics, not of science and technology. To believe that we can innovate and engineer ourselves out of this mess is to miss the key lesson of the Anthropocene – that dealing with planetary-scale processes calls for humility, not arrogance.

Our civilisation is underpinned by extractivism, a belief that the Earth is ours to exploit, and the nonsensical idea of infinite growth within a finite territory. Material possessions as markers of achievement, a drive to consume for the sake of consumption, and blindness to the long-term consequences of our actions, have all become part of the culture of global capitalism.

It means educating our children about humility and connectedness, rather than vanity and individuality. It means changing our relationship with consumption, breaking the spell of advertising, manufactured needs and status. It means political organising, generating demand for a politics that sees beyond the nation state, and beyond the lifespan of the currently living generations."


I fully concur with the concept of crisis of culture and politics. How many of us are willing and able to refrain from even the most basic of non-essential comforts and modern conveniences? It will take a reimagination of who we are to truly solve this crisis. All else is merely a distraction.
 
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I fully concur with the concept of crisis of culture and politics. How many of us are willing and able to refrain from even the most basic of non-essential comforts and modern conveniences? It will take a reimagination of who we are to truly solve this crisis. All else is merely a distraction.

A big part of the problem now is that so many people are oblivious to the crisis and are stlll living a consumer lifestyle. Sadly, we've known about climate change for 50 years (at least) but have neglected to take it seriously. Circumstances could have been so different had business and government taken appropriate action over the past few decades.
 
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A big part of the problem now is that so many people are oblivious to the crisis and are stlll living a consumer lifestyle. Sadly, we've known about climate change for 50 years (at least) but have neglected to take it seriously. Circumstances could have been so different had business and government taken appropriate action over the past few decades.

I opened an environmental store back in the 80's. Talk about resistance to change back then. My patrons understood, but it was difficult to make ends meet. The consumer model of mass production, big-box stores, single use and cheap imports priced most green goods out of the market. Interestingly, many of those items I sold back then I continue to use on a daily basis, so in fact they were very cost effective. I still drive the same car even. Fortunately, governments in Europe had some foresight and I relocated overseas for a time before moving to Asia. It was there that I found fertile ground for new ideas, particularly amongst the youth, but most people were still trapped in the past. Even those businesses with noble persuits must turn a profit.
 
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MusicAndMathBannerDaVinciMan.jpg


CONNECTION BETWEEN MUSIC AND MATH

The effect of music on math sometimes termed the Mozart effect.

The Mozart effect gain its name after the discovery that listening to Mozart’s compositions, which is very sequential, produces a short-termed enhancement of spatial-temporal reasoning. Some key reasoning features used in spatial temporal reasoning are:

1. The transformation and relating of mental images in space and time

2. Symmetries of the inherent cortical firing patterns used to compare physical and mental images and

3. Natural temporal sequences of those inherent cortical patterns.


It shows that the part of the cortex, which contains the repertoire of spatial-temporal firing patterns, can be excited by music and is utilized in higher brain functions such as spatial-temporal thinking in mathematics. Dr. Gottfried Schlaug found that certain regions of the brain such as the corpus callosum and the right motor cortex were larger in musician who started their musical training before the age of 7.

As to what happens in that area of the brain when one listens to music, we turn to the experiment performed by Xiaodeng Leng and Gordon Shaw. Gordon and Leng developed a model of higher brain function, which is based on the trion model. The trion model is a highly structured mathematical realization of the Mountcastle organization principle, with the column as the basic neuronal network in mammalian cortex. The column comprises mini-columns called trions.

One particular columnar network of trions has a large repertoire of spatial-temporal firing patterns, which can be excited and used in memory and higher brain functions. Shaw and Leng performed an experiment in which they mapped the trion model of firing patterns in that particular column onto various pitches and instruments producing recognizable styles of music. This mapping of the trions gaves insight to relate the neuronal processes involved in music and abstract spatial-temporal reasoning. It shows that the part of the cortex, which contains the repertoire of spatial-temporal firing patterns, can be excited by music and is utilized in higher brain functions such as spatial-temporal thinking in mathematics.

https://www.thesilo.ca/the-connection-between-music-and-math-a-neurobiology-perspective/
 
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