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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.
I came across this interesting weather report article today about an 'atmospheric river' event currently occurring in Australia. First I have heard of it...

Atmospheric river set to deliver a deluge from coast to coast

...What is an atmospheric river?

University of Melbourne PhD student Kimberly Reid studies atmospheric rivers.

She explains that they are like rivers of water in the sky that transport water, above our heads, at quantities roughly equivalent to the amount of water that flows down the Amazon.

"So they are huge and when they hit mountains or interact with cold fronts, as we are about to observe, they rain out this water and can typically cause heavy rainfall, floods, snow and strong winds."

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Read on...

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-22/weather-atmospheric-river-set-to-fuel-wet-week/100232244
 
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Interesting opinion on Bitcoin and blockchain tech.

Bitcoin is worth zero and there is no evidence that blockchain is a useful technology, Black Swan author Nassim Taleb says


"Black Swan" author Nassim Taleb doubled down on his criticism against bitcoin - this time, saying the cryptocurrency is worth exactly zero, and that there is no evidence that blockchain is a useful technology.

In a recent six-page draft paper titled "Bitcoin, Currencies, and Bubbles," Taleb laid out four key arguments against the cryptocurrency, which he promoted to his 743,000 Twitter followers.

Read on...

https://markets.businessinsider.com...hor-nassim-taleb-blockchain-2021-6-1030544622
 
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The very venomous caterpillar

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The venom of a caterpillar [Doratifera vulnerans], native to South East Queensland, shows promise for use in medicines and pest control, Institute for Molecular Bioscience researchers say.

Dr. Andrew Walker has been researching the striking looking caterpillar since 2017.

"We found that the venom is mostly peptides and shows stunning complexity, containing 151 different protein-based toxins from 59 different families."

The researcher team synthesized 13 of the peptide toxins and used them to show the unique evolutionary trajectory the caterpillar followed to produce pain-inducing venom.

"This will enable us to make the toxins and test them in diverse ways."

Some peptides already produced in the laboratory as part of Dr. Walker's research showed very high potency, with potential to efficiently kill nematode parasites that are harmful to livestock, as well as disease-causing pathogens.

Read the full article:

https://phys.org/news/2021-06-venomous-caterpillar.html
 
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Heads up for iPhone users who use random WiFi hotspots...

iPhone bug breaks WiFi when you join hotspot with unusual name

A new iPhone bug has come to light that breaks your iPhone's wireless functionality by merely connecting to a specific WiFi hotspot.

Once triggered, the bug would render your iPhone unable to establish a WiFi connection, even if it is rebooted or the WiFi hotspot is renamed.

A bug like this could be exploited by malicious actors planting rogue WiFi hotspots in popular areas to bork iPhone devices connecting to them.

Read on...

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/ne...wifi-when-you-join-hotspot-with-unusual-name/
 
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Bitcoin is speculation, not money, and facilitates financial crime, peak central bank warns

Bitcoin is not money — it is a speculative asset that can be used by organised crime to launder money and launch ransomware attacks, the world's top organisation of central banks says.

It has urged central banks, such as the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), to develop their own digital currencies to satisfy the wants of citizens who are being drawn to cryptocurrencies.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has released a scathing assessment of cryptocurrencies, saying their growing popularity is posing a problem for the world's financial system.

Read on...

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06...-says-bank-international-settlement/100240296
 
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Dirty secrets: sediment DNA reveals a 300,000-year timeline of ancient and modern humans living in Siberia

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In the foothills of the Altai Mountains in southern Siberia lies Denisova Cave. It is the only site in the world known to have been inhabited by the eponymous Denisovans and their close relatives the Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) — which overlapped at times — as well as by some of the earliest modern humans (Homo sapiens) to have dispersed into northern Asia.

Our new study pieces together the history of this site over the past 300,000 years from fragments of ancient DNA that survived in the cave sediments. Our findings reveal multiple turnovers of archaic and modern humans during this period, as well as major changes in the diversity of other animals.

We discovered Denisovans were the earliest toolmakers at the site, while Neanderthals were the sole human occupants between about 130,000 and 80,000 years ago. The first modern humans arrived much later, just as the last Denisovans and Neanderthals were leaving the scene.

We also detected marked changes in the types of human and animal DNA around 200,000 and 100,000 years ago, coincident with major shifts in climate and environmental conditions.


Read on...

https://theconversation.com/dirty-s...nt-and-modern-humans-living-in-siberia-161585
 
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The Day the Dinosaurs Died – Minute by Minute


66 million years ago, maybe on a Tuesday afternoon, life was the same as it had been the day before or a thousand years before or pretty much a million years before. Things were good for our feathered dinosaur buddies. Until a tiny, tiny detail in the sky changed.
 
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Some alarming findings ...

US life expectancy took an alarming plunge amid pandemic

Life expectancy in the United States plunged by nearly two years between 2018 and 2020, with the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbating a troubling trend dating back more than a decade, according to new findings published June 23 in The British Medical Journal.

The study, co-authored by researchers at CU Boulder, Virginia Commonwealth University and the Urban Institute, found the drop was even greater among racial minorities, slipping 3.25 years among Black Americans and nearly four years among Hispanics, compared to 1.36 years among whites.

The overall U.S. decline was 8.5 times greater than that of the average decline among 16 other high-income countries during the same period.

https://www.colorado.edu/today/2021/06/23/us-life-expectancy-took-alarming-plunge-amid-pandemic
 
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‘The water is coming’: Florida Keys faces stark reality as seas rise

Long famed for its spectacular fishing, sprawling coral reefs and literary residents such as Ernest Hemingway, the Florida Keys is now acknowledging a previously unthinkable reality: it faces being overwhelmed by the rising seas and not every home can be saved.

Following a grueling seven-hour public meeting on Monday, held in the appropriately named city of Marathon, officials agreed to push ahead with a plan to elevate streets throughout the Keys to keep them from perpetual flooding, while admitting they do not have the money to do so.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/science-technology-news-discussion.1212824/page-127#post-8316905
 
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New observations of the most distant galaxies close in on cosmic dawn

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New observations of six of the most distant galaxies currently known have helped to pinpoint the moment of first light in the Universe, known as ‘cosmic dawn’. The new work is published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, and puts a new spotlight on what could be among the first galaxies formed in the Universe.

Today our Universe is full of light, however this was not the case until the first stars and galaxies formed. The new work narrows down the moment when the Universe was first bathed in starlight to a small window just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. Prior to this the Universe was a dark place, with dust and gas gradually collecting via gravity to eventually form these first stars and galaxies, bringing to an end the cosmic Dark Ages.

Read on...

https://ras.ac.uk/news-and-press/re...tions-most-distant-galaxies-close-cosmic-dawn
 
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Massive human head in Chinese well forces scientists to rethink evolution

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The discovery of a huge fossilised skull that was wrapped up and hidden in a Chinese well nearly 90 years ago has forced scientists to rewrite the story of human evolution.

Analysis of the remains has revealed a new branch of the human family tree that points to a previously unknown sister group more closely related to modern humans than the Neanderthals.

The extraordinary fossil has been named a new human species, Homo longi or “Dragon man”, by Chinese researchers, although other experts are more cautious about the designation.

The skull appears to have a remarkable backstory. According to the researchers, it was originally found in 1933 by Chinese labourers building a bridge over the Songhua River in Harbin, in China’s northernmost province, Heilongjiang, during the Japanese occupation. To keep the skull from falling into Japanese hands it was wrapped and hidden in an abandoned well, resurfacing only in 2018 after the man who hid it told his grandson about it shortly before he died.

Read on...

https://www.theguardian.com/science...e-well-forces-scientists-to-rethink-evolution
 
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Researchers uncover remains of 3,000-year-old shark attack victim in Japan

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Researchers have uncovered the remains of what they say is a 3,000-year-old shark attack victim, in what is believed to be the earliest direct evidence for a shark attack on a human.

The findings, published in the Journal of Archeological Science: Reports, reveal the man suffered almost 800 "deep, serrated injuries", mostly to his arms, leg, chest and abdomen.

Working with experts from the Florida Program for Shark Research, they put together a reconstruction of the attack, and were able to conclude that the man likely died more than 3,000 years ago, between 1370 and 1010 BC.

"The distribution of wounds strongly suggest the victim was alive at the time of attack; his left hand was sheared off, possibly a defence wound," the report found.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06...r-3000-year-old-shark-attack-victim/100247190
 
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Rattlesnakes everywhere: the odd consequences of California’s drought

Len Ramirez stalked through the dried landscape, scanning the ground ahead searching for movement. Called out to an estate in Napa Valley, the owner of Ramirez Rattlesnake Removal company was finishing up his last job of another busy day wrangling, removing and relocating snakes from homes across northern California. He’d found three in just this yard, including one nestled roughly 1,000 yards from the pool.

Rattlesnakes are everywhere these days, he says – on front porches, in potted plants, and under children’s play equipment. “I am busier than I have ever been. Complaints are coming in from all over the state.”

Ramirez believes the drought may be partly to blame. He opened his business in 1985, and has seen spikes before. And while he doesn’t think the rattlesnake population is necessarily growing, snakes are increasingly finding their way into urban environments in search of refuge from the rising temperatures and relief from the drying landscape.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/26/california-drought-rattlesnakes-bears
 
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Rattlesnakes everywhere: the odd consequences of California’s drought

Len Ramirez stalked through the dried landscape, scanning the ground ahead searching for movement. Called out to an estate in Napa Valley, the owner of Ramirez Rattlesnake Removal company was finishing up his last job of another busy day wrangling, removing and relocating snakes from homes across northern California. He’d found three in just this yard, including one nestled roughly 1,000 yards from the pool.

Rattlesnakes are everywhere these days, he says – on front porches, in potted plants, and under children’s play equipment. “I am busier than I have ever been. Complaints are coming in from all over the state.”

Ramirez believes the drought may be partly to blame. He opened his business in 1985, and has seen spikes before. And while he doesn’t think the rattlesnake population is necessarily growing, snakes are increasingly finding their way into urban environments in search of refuge from the rising temperatures and relief from the drying landscape.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/26/california-drought-rattlesnakes-bears

Thanks.

We see similar cycles in Australia where snakes often show up in suburban areas during times of drought, including a couple of local cases recently where large pythons find their way into peoples roofs!

Snakes are generally quiet solitary animals who won't bother people unless provoked, but it can be quite a shock to come face to face with one when you least expect it.

I remember as a child disturbing an eastern brown snake in a rubbish heap behind a shed in Australia - I was too young at the time to realise just how close I came to being bitten by what is considered the world's second-most venomous land snake!
 
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Scientists develop wireless pacemaker that dissolves in body

A wireless pacemaker that can dissolve in the body has been created for patients who need only temporary help to regulate their heartbeat.

Since the first pacemaker was implanted in 1958, millions of people have benefited from the devices. According to the national audit for cardiac rhythm management, 32,902 pacemakers were implanted for the first time in the UK in the year 2018-19 alone.

But while some people require permanent pacemakers, others need them for days or weeks – for example after open-heart surgery.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jun/28/wireless-pacemaker-dissolves-body
 
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Flying cars will be a reality by 2030, says Hyundai’s Europe chief

Flying cars will be a reality in cities around the globe by the end of this decade, according to a leading car manufacturer, and will help to reduce congestion and cut vehicle emissions.

Michael Cole, the chief executive of the European operations of South Korean carmarker Hyundai, said the firm had made some “very significant investments” in urban air mobility, adding: “We believe it really is part of the future”.

https://www.theguardian.com/busines...e-a-reality-by-2030-says-hyundai-europe-chief
 
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Big oil and gas kept a dirty secret for decades. Now they may pay the price

After a century of wielding extraordinary economic and political power, America’s petroleum giants face a reckoning for driving the greatest existential threat of our lifetimes.

An unprecedented wave of lawsuits, filed by cities and states across the US, aim to hold the oil and gas industry to account for the environmental devastation caused by fossil fuels – and covering up what they knew along the way.

Coastal cities struggling to keep rising sea levels at bay, midwestern states watching “mega-rains” destroy crops and homes, and fishing communities losing catches to warming waters, are now demanding the oil conglomerates pay damages and take urgent action to reduce further harm from burning fossil fuels.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/30/climate-crimes-oil-and-gas-environment
 
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How did a small town in Canada become one of the hottest places on Earth?

On Sunday, the small mountain town of Lytton, British Columbia, became one of the hottest places in the world. Then, on Monday, Lytton got even hotter – 47.9C (118F) – hotter than it’s ever been in Las Vegas, 1,300 miles to the south. And by Tuesday, 49.6C (121F).

Lytton is at 50 deg N latitude – about the same as London. This part of the world should never get this hot. Seattle’s new all-time record of 108F, also set Monday, is hotter than it’s ever been in Miami. In Portland, the new record of 116F would beat the warmest day ever recorded in Houston by nearly 10 degrees.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jun/30/lytton-hottest-places-world-climate-emergency
 
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‘No one has waited longer’: trailblazing female pilot Wally Funk will go to space with Bezos

Wally Funk, a trailblazing female pilot denied the job of astronaut in the 1960s over her gender, will finally get the chance to fulfill her dreams of going into space.

Billionaire and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announced Thursday on Instagram that Funk will be part of a four-person crew set to be launched into space by Blue Origin during a 10-minute flight on his rocket New Shepard later this month.

Funk, 82, will be the oldest person ever to travel into space, after the late John Glenn set the current record at age 77 while aboard space shuttle Discovery in 1998.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jul/01/jeff-bezos-space-flight-pilot-wally-funk
 
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How did a small town in Canada become one of the hottest places on Earth?

On Sunday, the small mountain town of Lytton, British Columbia, became one of the hottest places in the world. Then, on Monday, Lytton got even hotter – 47.9C (118F) – hotter than it’s ever been in Las Vegas, 1,300 miles to the south. And by Tuesday, 49.6C (121F).

Lytton is at 50 deg N latitude – about the same as London. This part of the world should never get this hot. Seattle’s new all-time record of 108F, also set Monday, is hotter than it’s ever been in Miami. In Portland, the new record of 116F would beat the warmest day ever recorded in Houston by nearly 10 degrees.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jun/30/lytton-hottest-places-world-climate-emergency

And then Lytton pretty much burned to the ground: https://globalnews.ca/news/7996986/in-photos-lytton-bc-fire-aftermath/
 
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Study suggests bacteria in cow’s stomach can break down plastic

Bacteria found in one of the compartments of a cow’s stomach can break down plastic, research suggests.

Since the 1950s, more than 8bn tonnes of plastic have been produced – equivalent in weight to 1 billion elephants – driven predominantly by packaging, single-use containers, wrapping and bottles. As a result, plastic pollution is all-pervasive, in the water and in the air, with people unwittingly consuming and breathing microplastic particles. In recent years, researchers have been working on harnessing the ability of tiny microscopic bugs to break down the stubborn material.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/science-technology-news-discussion.1212824/page-127#post-8324466
 
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‘We thought it wouldn’t affect us’: heatwave forces climate reckoning in Pacific north-west

The record heatwave in the Pacific north-west is forcing a reckoning on the climate crisis, as many living in the typically mild region consider what rising temperatures mean for the future.

A “heat dome” without parallel trapped hot air over much of the states of Oregon and Washington in the United States, and southern British Columbia in Canada, in past days, shattering weather records in the usually temperate region.

Temperatures in tiny Lytton, British Columbia, hit 49.6C (121.3F) and set a Canadian all-time record, days before a wildfire tore through the town. Roads buckled under the heat in Washington and Oregon. Heat and heavy air conditioner use knocked out power for tens of thousands. The dead, thought to number in the hundreds, are not yet counted.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/03/pacific-northwest-heat-dome-climate-change
 
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