Science & Technology news & discussion

Elephants counted from space for conservation



At first, the satellite images appear to be of grey blobs in a forest of green splotches - but, on closer inspection, those blobs are revealed as elephants wandering through the trees.

And scientists are using these images to count African elephants from space.

The pictures come from an Earth-observation satellite orbiting 600km (372 miles) above the planet's surface.

The breakthrough could allow up to 5,000 sq km of elephant habitat to be surveyed on a single cloud-free day.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-55737086

A mammoth task made easier!

 

How the male mantis keeps its head during rough sex



A male Springbok praying mantis looking for a hook up doesn't have to worry about a female stealing his heart away.

There is, however, a very good change she'll bite his head off, and he knows it.

Indeed, 60 percent of sexual encounters between Springboks -- one of nearly 2,000 mantis species across the globe -- end in males being eaten as snack.

https://au.news.yahoo.com/male-mantis-keeps-head-during-000113012.html

 

Solar system formation in two steps



An international team of researchers from the University of Oxford, LMU Munich, ETH Zurich, BGI Bayreuth, and the University of Zurich discovered that a two-step formation process of the early Solar System can explain the chronology and split in volatile and isotope content of the inner and outer Solar System.

https://phys.org/news/2021-01-solar-formation.html

 

German scientists make paralyzed mice walk again

German researchers have enabled mice paralyzed after spinal cord injuries to walk again, re-establishing a neural link hitherto considered irreparable in mammals by using a designer protein injected into the brain.

But the researchers from Ruhr University Bochum managed to stimulate the paralyzed mice’s nerve cells to regenerate using a designer protein.

“The special thing about our study is that the protein is not only used to stimulate those nerve cells that produce it themselves, but that it is also carried further (through the brain),” the team’s head Dietmar Fischer told Reuters in an interview.


The treatment involves injecting carriers of genetic information into the brain to produce the protein, called hyper-interleukin-6, according to the university’s website.

 

Giant worm's undersea lair discovered by fossil hunters in Taiwan

The undersea lair of a giant worm that ambushed passing marine creatures 20m years ago has been uncovered by fossil hunters in Taiwan.

Researchers believe the 2-metre-long burrow found in ancient marine sediment once housed a prehistoric predator that burst out of the seabed and dragged unsuspecting animals down into its lair.



The creature may have been similar to the ferocious “Bobbit worms” of today that lie in wait in sandy seafloor burrows with antennae protruding to sense passersby. Though soft-bodied, the worms possess sharp and powerful jaws that can slice a fish in two.




Löwemark and his colleagues discovered the fossilised lair and others like it while studying 20m-year-old sedimentary rock on the north-eastern coast of Taiwan. The burrows are strengthened with mucus and are more resilient to weathering, meaning they sometimes protrude from the fine sandstone rock faces.

 

New research demonstrates how best camouflage can be found for an arbitrary environment



A new method, developed by scientists at the University of Bristol can determine the optimal colouration pattern to cover an object in order to make it as visible or concealed as possible, in any given environment.

And in doing so can help to provide insights into how animal colouration has evolved.

The authors, all members of the University’s CamoLab, believe that their new method, dubbed The Camouflage Machine, can be very useful for evolutionary biologists trying to understand how colouration evolved and can also explain trade-offs between concealment or highly conspicuous colours – for example warning colouration or sexual displays.

“Has evolution been constrained by the way patterns develop in mammals? Are the differences in spot pattern between species accidents of history, or do they reflect differences in habitat? The Camouflage Machine allows us to investigate such questions.”

https://www.miragenews.com/new-rese...ge-can-be-found-for-an-arbitrary-environment/

 

i thought were going to talk about the hack

 

Scientists Think These Ridiculous Bones May Belong to New Largest-Ever Dinosaur



Scientists have unearthed massive, 98-million-year-old fossils in southwest Argentina they say may have belonged to the largest dinosaur ever discovered.

Human-sized pieces of fossilized bone belonging to the giant sauropod appear to be 10-20 percent larger than those attributed to Patagotitan mayorum, the biggest dinosaur ever identified, according to a statement Wednesday from the National University of La Matanza's CTYS scientific agency.

https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-claim-they-may-have-found-the-largest-dinosaur-ever-known

 

Using the Sun to Image Alien Planets



A team at NASA’s JPL is proposing a mission that will let us see planets in other solar systems. Bloomberg’s Moonshots talks with the scientist behind what could be the most powerful telescope ever built, with a little help from the sun.

 

Hundreds of never-before-seen life-forms live in this 6,000-foot-deep volcano's acid jets



These extreme microbes like it hot… really hot.

In a study published Dec. 22, 2020, in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, marine biologists used a remotely operated robot to scrape sediment from a 6,000-foot-deep (1,800 meters) collection of hydrothermal vents called Brother's Volcano, located about 200 miles (320 kilometers) northeast of New Zealand.

In a subsequent DNA analysis of the volcanic sediment, the team identified 285 different types of novel microbes previously unknown to science. The new extremophile haul includes 202 potential new species of bacteria and 83 species of archaea (ancient single-celled microbes that tend to live in extreme environments).

https://www.livescience.com/extreme-microbes-underwater-volcano.html

 

Google parent Alphabet shuts Project Loon to beam internet from high-altitude balloons

Google parent Alphabet Inc. shut down Loon, an audacious project to beam internet service from high-altitude balloons, after the unit failed to develop a viable business model.



“While we’ve found a number of willing partners along the way, we haven’t found a way to get the costs low enough to build a long-term, sustainable business,” Loon Chief Executive Officer Alastair Westgarth wrote Thursday in a blog post. “Developing radical new technology is inherently risky, but that doesn’t make breaking this news any easier. Today, I’m sad to share that Loon will be winding down.”

Elon beat them with starlink!

 

Groundbreaking New Laser System Cuts Through Earth's Atmosphere Like It's Nothing



To artists and romantics, the twinkling of stars is visual poetry; a dance of distant light as it twists and bends through a turbulent ocean of air above our heads.

Not everybody is so enamoured with our atmosphere's distortions. To many scientists and engineers, a great deal of research and ground-to-satellite communication would be a whole lot easier if the air simply wasn't there.

Losing our planet's protective bubble of gases isn't exactly a popular option. But Australian and French researchers have teamed up to design the next best thing – a system that guides light through the tempestuous currents of rippling air with the flick of a mirror.

The result is a laser link capable of holding its own through the atmosphere with unprecedented stability.

https://www.sciencealert.com/this-g...ts-our-atmosphere-as-if-it-doesn-t-even-exist

 

Google threatens to shut search engine in Australia over news row

Google has threatened to close its search engine in Australia if the government proceeds with a plan to force Big Tech groups to pay news providers for their content.

The warning is Google’s strongest yet against the landmark proposal, which would compel the company and fellow US tech group Facebook to pay news organisations and publishers in exchange for circulating stories.

https://www.ft.com/content/848971e5-4b44-408a-8f52-3d3fa915172c

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‘Blackmail’: Google to ‘punish all of Australia’ over big tech proposal

Google has been lashed by people across the political spectrum after it issued an ‘extraordinary’ threat to Australian internet users.

https://www.news.com.au/technology/...l/news-story/9b2c8157386ff0a1653be66767ff74bf

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We won't be threatened!

 

im old enough to remember;

“a dinosaur named Sue.”

 

Fascinating, disturbing

 

i bookmarked this page
https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/sentry/

 

Deadly Bacteria Could Be Sharing Antibiotic Resistance Faster Than We Thought



Antibiotics have saved countless lives over the decades. Yet to the pathogens they kill, antibiotics are an ancient foe, one they are already adept at fighting.

It turns out the spread of antibiotic resistance might not be as constrained as we assumed, giving more species far easier access to antibiotic resistance than previous models would have us believe.

https://www.sciencealert.com/deadly...-antibiotic-resistance-faster-than-we-thought

 

Mind-Blowing Video Reveals The Formation of Salt Crystals From Individual Atoms



... on the atomic level, we have a poor understanding of how crystals form, particularly nucleation – the very first step in the crystallisation process. That's partially because it's a dynamic process that happens on such small scales, and partially because it's somewhat random, both of which make it difficult to study.

That's what makes the work of a team of researchers led by chemist Takayuki Nakamuro of the University of Tokyo in Japan so exciting. Using a special technique in development since 2005, they have filmed the crystallisation of salt on the atomic scale for the first time.

Since crystallisation is used for a wide number of applications - from medicine to industrial manufacturing – this is a step towards better controlling how we create materials, the researchers said.

https://www.sciencealert.com/watch-the-first-ever-atomic-scale-video-of-salt-crystals-forming

 

Ammonia May Lurk in the Ice of Saturn’s Moons, a Clue to Possible Oceans

Thirteen years ago, the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft was orbiting Saturn, not yet through its first mission, when a set of telescopes on board observed an unknown ultraviolet signal. The intriguing data was only recently inspected, though, and an international research team now suspects it may indicate the presence of hydrazine on Saturn’s second-largest moon, Rhea.

The effort, which includes scientists from the United Kingdom, Taiwan, India and the United States, used the spectral data provided by UVIS, a telescopic behemoth that looked a bit like a refrigerator turned on its side. (UVIS was much more technologically complex than a fridge and was destroyed along with the rest of Cassini in 2017, when the craft plummeted into Saturn’s atmosphere.) Taken during flybys of Rhea in 2007 and 2011, the data Cassini collected indicated an unidentified spectroscopic signature emanating from the icy moon. In other words, something on Rhea was absorbing ultraviolet radiation, and the team was trying to figure out what molecule was responsible. Their findings are published today in the journal Science Advances.


“The possible detection of hydrazine monohydrate in the Saturnian system (Rhea) is significant in that it may point to the presence of ammonia within the ice layers of Saturn’s icy moons,” Mark Elowitz, an astrophysicist at the Open University in the UK and lead author of the paper, said in an email. “Ammonia is important because it could depress the freezing point of water-ice mixtures, thereby increasing the likelihood that subsurface oceans could exist inside some of Saturn’s icy satellites.”

 

New light shed on Charles Darwin's 'abominable mystery'



The famous naturalist [Charles Darwin] was haunted by the question of how the first flowering plants evolved.

Darwin feared this inexplicable puzzle would undermine his theories of evolution, says Prof Richard Buggs.

Forgotten historical documents show a rival scientist was arguing for divine intervention in the rise of the flowering plants.

Darwin was deeply bothered by how flowering plants conquered the world seemingly in the blink of an eye, while other large groups, such as the mammals, evolved gradually.

The advent of flowering plants suggested evolution could be both rapid and abrupt, in direct contradiction to an essential element of natural selection, natura non facit saltum - nature makes no leap.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-55769269

 

[NASA/ JPL] Sentry: Earth Impact Monitoring

Sentry is a highly automated collision monitoring system that continually scans the most current asteroid catalog for possibilities of future impact with Earth over the next 100 years. Whenever a potential impact is detected it will be analyzed and the results immediately published here, except in unusual cases where we seek independent confirmation.... objects will disappear from this table whenever there are no longer any potential impact detections.

https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/sentry/

 

Hubble Space Telescope snaps stunning view of ethereal 'Lost Galaxy'

There are a lot of gorgeous galaxies out there in the universe, but it's hard to top a truly sublime spiral, the kind of galaxy that swirls sparkling curved arms across the dark of space. That's what's on show in a new Hubble Space Telescope portrait of galaxy NGC 4535.

NGC 4535 has an engaging nickname: the Lost Galaxy. It's not actually lost in space, but the moniker comes from how it looks with gear that's not as fancy as Hubble.




"Despite the incredible quality of this image, taken from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, NGC 4535 has a hazy, somewhat ghostly, appearance when viewed from a smaller telescope," the European Space Agency said in a statement Friday.

 

Wishing @koolishman a belated happy first anniversary!

Thanks for all your wonderful posts and support of this thread, and a big welcome to the VIP club my friend

 

🙏

I ate all the cake!😜

 

Will deplatforming make QAnon and the far-right fade away or radicalise further?

"Deplatforming decreases the chance of further radicalisation and sends a strong signal that the promotion of violence and baseless conspiracy theories is unacceptable behaviour."

..., neo-Nazis are taking advantage of the fracturing and disillusionment of QAnon to attempt to grow their numbers.

Experience shows that when extremist groups lose their platforms they tend to grow more toxic as they shrink.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science...-right-qanon-fade-away-or-radicalise/13079822