discuss Science & Technology news & discussion

[CraigD]

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!

 

[Cal2]

How did I not know about this? Gamechanger...

Based on following article, a couple things the video seems to get wrong:

1. Musk doesn't live in the Boxabl.
2. Musk doesn't own Boxabl.

https://www.businessinsider.com/elo...ab-boxabl-casita-50000-person-waitlist-2021-8

 

[J Sokol]

Based on following article, a couple things the video seems to get wrong:

1. Musk doesn't live in the Boxabl.
2. Musk doesn't own Boxabl.

I wondered about that; I can't see Musk living in such a tiny space. Also, the video implies that Boxabl is Musk's company, which is also untrue. It seems more like a PR piece to improve his sagging image.

 

[Cal2]

I wondered about that; I can't see Musk living in such a tiny space. Also, the video implies that Boxabl is Musk's company, which is also untrue. It seems more like a PR piece to improve his sagging image.

I think Musk is living in a tiny house - or was. Just not a Boxabl tiny house.

https://www.ndtv.com/offbeat/no-elo...oxabl-tiny-home-heres-what-he-tweeted-2611563

 

[koolishman]

World heading into ‘uncharted territory of destruction’, says climate report​

The United in Science report found:​

• The past seven years were the hottest on record and there is a 48% chance during at least one year in the next five that the annual mean temperature will temporarily be 1.5C higher than the 1850-1900 average.
• Global mean temperatures are forecast to be between 1.1C and 1.7C higher than pre-industrial levels from 2022-2026, and there is a 93% probability that at least one year in the next five will be warmer than the hottest year on record, 2016.
• Dips in carbon dioxide emissions during the lockdowns associated with the Covid-19 pandemic were temporary, and carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels returned to pre-pandemic levels last year.
• National pledges on greenhouse gas emissions are insufficient to hold global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
• Climate-related disasters are causing $200m in economic losses a day.
• Nearly half the planet – 3.3 to 3.6 billion people – are living in areas highly vulnerable to the impacts of the climate crisis, but fewer than half of countries have early warning systems for extreme weather.
• As global heating increases, “tipping points” in the climate system cannot be ruled out. These include the drying out of the Amazon rainforest, the melting of the ice caps and the weakening of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, known as the Gulf stream.
• By the 2050s, more than 1.6 billion people living in 97 cities will be regularly exposed to three-month average temperatures reaching at least 35C.

 

[koolishman]

Yes that's right.. they can survive for a limited period out on the space, because they just haven't been evolved specially for life in space. Just for extreme earth life with long dehidrated or water default periods.

But the key of Tardigrades, is on their hibernation period, not when they are "awake".
When they are awake they are very easy to destroy.... but when they change to "hibernation mode" then are almost indestructible".

Tardigrades survive being dried out thanks to proteins found in no other animals on Earth​

Now, a new study reveals how tardigrades survive without any water at all: Unique proteins turn the insides of tardigrade cells into gel, thereby preventing the critters' cell membranes from crinkling and collapsing. This strategy is completely different from those seen in other types of animals that can survive dry periods.

 

[koolishman]

A universal flu vaccine has aced phase i trials​

A universal flu vaccine — which could provide multi-year protection against an array of influenza viruses — was well-tolerated and produced a strong immune response, according to the results of a phase 1 clinical trial.

This universal flu vaccine candidate takes aim at a relatively stationary target on the notoriously slippery virus. The constant genetic reshuffling of the flu virus means we need a new vaccine on the regular to keep up.

 

[koolishman]

Covid-19 pandemic linked to early onset of puberty in some girls​

In the latest of a string of studies, researchers at the University of Bonn, Germany, reported how the number of girls diagnosed with early puberty at a single medical centre remained constant between 2015 and 2019, at fewer than 10 cases a year.

This more than doubled to 23 in 2020, when the covid-19 outbreak took hold worldwide, rising further still to 30 in 2021, according to results presented at The European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology 2022 meeting today.

 

[koolishman]

Scientists Discover 380 Million-Year-Old Heart, Stunningly Preserved​

The heart belonged to an extinct class of armored, jawed fish called arthrodires that thrived in the Devonian period between 419.2 million and 358.9 million years ago -- and the ticker's a good 250 million years older than the jawed-fish heart that currently holds the "oldest" title. But despite the fish being so archaic, the positioning of its S-shaped heart with two chambers led researchers to observe surprising anatomical similarities between the ancient swimmer and modern sharks.

 

[koolishman]

Japanese researchers win Ig Nobel for research on knob turning​

A group of Japanese researchers has won an Ɪg Nobel Prize for their analysis of how people use their fingers to turn a knob.

Professor Matsuzaki Gen and his team at the Chiba Institute of Technology were awarded this year's engineering prize in an online ceremony on Thursday.

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

Also,

First individual to win both a Nobel and Ig Nobel prize

 

[koolishman]

Tiny robots made of “galinstan” can run faster than a (scaled down) cheetah​

Scientists at Johannes Kepler University (JKU) have created steerable soft robots that are capable of running, swimming, and jumping at high speeds. During testing, the robots achieved a speed of 70 BL/s (body lengths per second). These results are striking because even a cheetah (the fastest land animal on Earth) can only run up to 23 BL/s. But don’t expect absolute speed records, as the robots have millimeter-scale bodies—although these tiny machines are probably the fastest soft robots on the planet.

 

[koolishman]

Falling objects in orbit show Einstein was right — again​

Gravity doesn’t discriminate. An experiment in orbit has confirmed, with precision a hundred times greater than previous efforts, that everything falls the same way under the influence of gravity.

The finding is the most stringent test yet of the equivalence principle, a key tenet of Einstein’s theory of general relativity. The principle holds to about one part in a thousand trillion, researchers report September 14 in Physical Review Letters.

 

[Cal2]

"Brick toaster" aims to cut global CO2 output by 15% in 15 years. Seriously.​

At the heart of it, this ain't rocket surgery; converting electricity into heat is something that happens at 100% efficiency every time you turn on your toaster or hairdryer, says O'Donnell. Rondo uses a simple toaster-style system to heat up "blast stoves," similar to the ones the steel industry already uses for cyclical heat storage. These stoves are full of plain ol' bricks, made out of plain ol' clay, sometimes with a bit of sand in there, but certainly nothing special in terms of materials. Nothing toxic, nothing that decays over time. These bricks will still be storing heat just as well in 40 or 50 years' time, when chemical batteries have gone through several generations of complex recycling.

Rondo says it can pull that heat back out at an extraordinary 98% efficiency, resulting in a dirt-cheap industrial heat storage solution that costs "about one fifth the cost per unit of energy stored as any electrochemical battery," according to O'Donnell. "On the outside, it looks fairly boring. It's only possible today because of supercomputer computational fluid dynamics, and finite element analysis and AI system controls. We're building something that's very simple – but was very interesting and complicated to design."

The first generation of Rondo brick toasters are optimized for low cost, super-fast deployment and scale, and are capable of holding heat up to 1,500 °C (2,732 °F), which O'Donnell says can cover approximately 80% of industrial heat requirements globally. Down the track, using more expensive heaters and brick materials chosen for the purpose, he says it's possible to hit 1,800 °C (3,272 °F) or so, which brings steelmaking into range, and would cover somewhere around 92% of industrial use cases.

"The couple of years of science and investigation are behind us, and we are right now making the journey from the labs, through late-stage prototypes, to our first customer installations this year with a goal of being at very large scale next year in the year beyond," said O'Donnell. "And we're looking very hard at the project finance community and the pathways that enable scaling the fastest."

https://newatlas.com/energy/rondo-h...ail&utm_term=0_65b67362bd-f494f0ce19-90628689

 

[koolishman]

Researchers Say It'll Be Impossible to Control a Super-Intelligent AI​

The catch is that controlling a super-intelligence far beyond human comprehension would require a simulation of that super-intelligence which we can analyze (and control). But if we're unable to comprehend it, it's impossible to create such a simulation.

Rules such as 'cause no harm to humans' can't be set if we don't understand the kind of scenarios that an AI is going to come up with, suggest the authors of the new paper. Once a computer system is working on a level above the scope of our programmers, we can no longer set limits.

"A super-intelligence poses a fundamentally different problem than those typically studied under the banner of 'robot ethics'," wrote the researchers.

"This is because a superintelligence is multi-faceted, and therefore potentially capable of mobilizing a diversity of resources in order to achieve objectives that are potentially incomprehensible to humans, let alone controllable."

 

[koolishman]

Leading the whey: the synthetic milk startups shaking up the dairy industry​

Synthetic milk has emerged as a new potential alternative to cow’s milk, one that – unlike plant-based oat, nut and soy milks – purports to replicate its taste, appearance and mouthfeel. Described by experts as the future of milk, it has been touted as an environmentally friendly option that may shake up the dairy industry – and leave small-scale farmers in the lurch.

“Lab-grown milk is considered the next food frontier,” says Dr Diana Bogueva, of Curtin University’s Sustainability Policy Institute, citing the growing popularity of dairy alternatives. Compared with dairy production, synthetic milk is likely to have a smaller carbon footprint and cause less pollution, and obviously eliminates animal welfare concerns, she says.

 

[koolishman]

Stanford researchers find wildfire smoke is unraveling decades of air quality gains, exposing millions of Americans to extreme pollution levels​

Wildfire smoke now exposes millions of Americans each year to dangerous levels of fine particulate matter, lofting enough soot across parts of the West in recent years to erase much of the air quality gains made over the last two decades.

Those are among the findings of a new Stanford University study published Sept. 22 in Environmental Science & Technology that focuses on a type of particle pollution known as PM2.5, which can lodge deep in our lungs and even get into our bloodstream.

 

[koolishman]

Blob of hot gas swirls around Milky Way black hole at 30% speed of light​

Tucked away in the heart of the Milky Way galaxy is a slumbering giant known as Sagittarius A* (pronounced “A-star”). While some supermassive black holes can be extremely active — devouring large quantities of gas and dust that glow brilliantly in X-rays — Sagittarius A*, or Sgr A* for short, is rather lethargic in comparison.

But occasionally, Sgr A* will put on a fleeting show.

 

[koolishman]

‘Forever chemicals’ detected in all umbilical cord blood in 40 studies​

Toxic PFAS chemicals were detected in every umbilical cord blood sample across 40 studies conducted over the last five years, a new review of scientific literature from around the world has found.

The studies collectively examined nearly 30,000 samples, and many linked fetal PFAS exposure to health complications in unborn babies, young children and later in life. The studies’ findings are “disturbing”, said Uloma Uche, an environmental health science fellow with the Environmental Working Group, which analyzed the peer-reviewed studies’ data.


“Even before you’ve come into the world, you’re already exposed to PFAS,” she said.

 

[Cannuck]

At the heart of Category 4 Hurricane Fiona, a robotic surfboard managed to brave intensifying ocean swells and strengthening winds to capture rare footage from inside the hurricane.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1573025397758992386

This is the second year Saildrone has deployed hurricane-equipped units into the Atlantic with the goal of obtaining measurements and footage as close to the eye of the hurricane as possible. The company manufactures and designs autonomous surface vehicles that collect ocean data to deepen the understanding of hurricanes, map the ocean floor and track diverse ecosystems below the surface.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/09/22/ocean-drone-hurricane-fiona-waves/

 

[koolishman]

Tiny swimming robots treat deadly pneumonia in mice​

Nanoengineers at the University of California San Diego have developed microscopic robots, called microrobots, that can swim around in the lungs, deliver medication and be used to clear up life-threatening cases of bacterial pneumonia.


In mice, the microrobots safely eliminated pneumonia-causing bacteria in the lungs and resulted in 100% survival. By contrast, untreated mice all died within three days after infection.

Also,

From UCSD, Microromotors treat bacterial infection

 

[koolishman]

DeepMind scientists win $3 million 'Breakthrough Prize' for AI that predicts every protein's structure​

The open-source program makes its predictions based on the sequence of a protein's amino acids, or the molecular units that make up the protein, Live Science previously reported. These individual units link up in a long chain that then gets "folded" into a 3D shape. The 3D structure of a protein dictates what that protein can do, whether that's cutting DNA or tagging dangerous pathogens for destruction, so being able to infer the shape of proteins from their amino acid sequence is incredibly powerful

 

[koolishman]

Black 'sand-like' asteroid dust found in box from Japan probe

Black sandy dust found in a capsule brought to Earth by a Japanese space probe is from the distant asteroid Ryugu, scientists confirmed after opening it on Monday. The discovery comes a week after the Hayabusa-2 probe dropped off its capsule, which entered the atmosphere in a streak of light before landing in the Australian desert and then being transported to Japan.

https://phys.org/news/2020-12-black-sand-like-asteroid-japan-probe.html

The “Stony Materials Initial Analysis Team” have published their first results from the initial analysis of the asteroid Ryugu sample returned by the Hayabusa2 mission in the international journal Science.

Remnant magnetism was detected in micro-crystals of magnetite. These magnetic minerals act like many small magnets and behave like a natural hard disc, recording a magnetic field that the rock felt more than 4.6 billion years ago.

Trapped fluid inclusions were discovered in a large pyrrhotite (iron sulphide) crystal in one of the sample grains. The fluid was found to contain H2O and CO2, as well as sulphur species and organic molecules. The presence of water and CO2 indicates that Ryugu’s parent body formed far away from the Sun, where H2O and CO2 could freeze into solids that could be included in the asteroid.

 

[koolishman]

Parkinson’s breakthrough can diagnose disease from skin swabs in 3 minutes​

The study, published today in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, have found that there are lipids of high molecular weight that are substantially more active in people suffering from Parkinson’s disease.

The researchers from The University of Manchester used cotton swabs to sample people and identify the compounds present with mass spectrometry. The method developed involves paper spray ionisation mass spectrometry combined with ion mobility separation and can be performed in as little as 3 mins from swab to results.

Professor Perdita Barran at The University of Manchester, who led the research said: “We are tremendously excited by these results which take us closer to making a diagnostic test for Parkinson's Disease that could be used in clinic.”

 

[koolishman]

Association between meatless diet and depressive episodes: A cross-sectional analysis of baseline data from the longitudinal study of adult health​

Highlights​

Vegetarianism appears to be associated with a high prevalence of depressive episodes.

In this study, participants who excluded meat from their diet were found to have a higher prevalence of depressive episodes as compared to participants who consumed meat.

This association is independent of socioeconomic, lifestyle factors and nutrient deficiencies.

 

[J Sokol]

For Mormons, a perfect lawn is a godly act. But the drought is catching up with them

For many Mormons in Utah – who make up two-thirds of the state’s population of 3 million – the concept of being a good steward is wrapped up in a pioneer nostalgia that favors an artificial, irrigated landscape over the natural desert environment. This Mormon version of Manifest Destiny is at the heart of why Utahns suck up so much municipal water as well as why the state is moving at a dangerously glacial pace to deal with the climate crisis.

Like the rest of the south-west, Utah is in a megadrought that started in 2000. As the second driest state in the United States behind Nevada, the unprecedented aridity has hit Utah especially hard. For the last two summers, about 90% of the state was in exceptional, extreme or severe drought, according to the US Drought Monitor. But this did not stop people in Utah – the Esplins notwithstanding – from keeping their grass green all summer long.

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...awns-utah-old-testament-godly-act-megadrought

 

[koolishman]

Nasa to crash $330m spacecraft into asteroid to see if impact can alter course​

Show attachment 222423


In a few weeks, Nasa controllers will deliberately crash their $330m Dart robot spacecraft into an asteroid. The half-tonne probe will be travelling at more than four miles a second when it strikes its target, Dimorphos, and will be destroyed.

NASA successfully crashed a spacecraft into asteroid to deflect it.