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!

 

[koolishman]

There's Mounting Evidence That Life on Earth Started With More Than Just RNA

How life originated on Earth continues to fascinate scientists, but it's not easy peering back billions of years into the past. Now, evidence is growing for a relatively new hypothesis of how life began: with a very precise mix of RNA and DNA.

RNA and DNA both determine the genetic make-up of all biological life, with DNA acting as a genetic blueprint and RNA as a blueprint reader or decoder. For a long time, it was thought that RNA developed on Earth first, with DNA evolving afterwards – but mounting evidence suggests they may have emerged at the same time and both been involved in kickstarting life on the planet.

The latest study to back up this idea explains how the simple compound diamidophosphate (DAP) – which may have predated life on Earth – can knit together DNA building blocks called deoxynucleosides into basic DNA strands.

"We found, to our surprise, that using DAP to react with deoxynucleosides works better when the deoxynucleosides are not all the same but are instead mixes of different DNA letters such as A and T, or G and C, like real DNA," says chemical biologist Eddy Jiménez, from Scripps Research.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.202015910

 

[koolishman]

Study of More Than 1 Million People Finds Intriguing Link Between Iron Levels And Lifespan

A massive study published in 2020 found evidence that blood iron levels could play a role in influencing how long you live.

It's always important to take longevity studies with a big grain of salt, but the research was impressive in its breadth, covering genetic information from well over 1 million people across three public databases. It also focused on three key measures of ageing: lifespan, years lived free of disease (referred to as healthspan), and making it to an extremely old age (AKA longevity).

Put simply, having too much iron in the blood appeared to be linked to an increased risk of dying earlier.

While correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation, the researchers used a statistical technique called Mendelian randomisation to reduce bias and attempt to infer causation in the data.


www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17312-3

 

[CraigD]

Isaac Asimov talks about superstition, religion and why he teaches rationality

This was recorded in 1988. He also explains why some people who think that we should abandon science are wrong and how scientific worldview is the best.

 

[koolishman]

Bertrand Russell's Advice for Future Generations from a 1959 BBC interview

 

[Cannuck]

Australia has lots of ancient volcanoes. But how did they form?

Similarly, on the Canadian Shield there are mountains formed by ancient volcanos dating between 1.1 to 2.5 billion years old, some of the oldest remains on the earth surface. Magma flowed from the mantle between cracks in the different age layers. The harder igneous caprock sill protects the softer layers below which have since eroded through glaciation and weathering. The basin that was scoured by glaciers and filled after the last ice age to form Lake Superior, the largest inland lake in the world (560km long, 250km wide)

 

[CraigD]

Similarly, on the Canadian Shield there are mountains formed by ancient volcanos dating between 1.1 to 2.5 billion years old, some of the oldest remains on the earth surface. Magma flowed from the mantle between cracks in the different age layers. The harder igneous caprock sill protects the softer layers below which have since eroded through glaciation and weathering. The basin that was scoured by glaciers and filled after the last ice age to form Lake Superior, the largest inland lake in the world (560km long, 250km wide)

Thanks!

The most recent eruption in Canada took place at Lava Fork in northwestern B.C. about 150 years ago. The last big explosive eruption in Canada took place 2350 years ago at Mount Meager, and the ash layer from this eruption can still be found as far away as Alberta.
https://chis.nrcan.gc.ca/volcano-volcan/can-vol-en.php

Some informative links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanism_of_Canada
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_volcanoes_in_Canada
https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/canada.html

https://www.britannica.com/place/North-America/The-Canadian-Shield
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/shield

 

[CraigD]

Adobe Flash Player Says Goodbye as the Service Permanently Shuts Down Before the New Year

Adobe has launched its final update for Flash Player, and is now solemnly offering farewells to the millions of users that have benefited from it over the years.

Most of us were probably aware that Adobe Flash was going to be leaving us rather soon, but a lot of users are not ready to accept this fact. Google Chrome and other browsers have been flashing warnings since the start of the year, warning users that they will stop supporting Flash as soon as the new year rolls by. Adobe itself released a notice on the 8th of this year, published with the final Flash update for regions outside of China. The notice stated that Adobe will stop supporting Flash Player after December 31st, and will only support content running on the platform until January 12th, 2021.

https://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2021/01/adobe-flash-player-says-goodbye-as.html

 

[CraigD]

Flying Humans Back To The Moon

Let's take a look at Artemis, Gateway, Lunar orbits, and how to safely get humans onto the surface of the Moon and back to Earth.

 

[CraigD]

Calls from the deep: do we need to Save the Whales all over again?

Produced by marine biologist Dr Roger Payne from audio of male humpbacks singing off the coast of Bermuda, Songs of the Humpback Whale had been a surprise hit with the public, and remains the only multiplatinum-selling album of animal sounds. It also announced a scientific breakthrough: Payne and his team had found that whales don’t just call but actually sing to each other, in slowly repeating patterns.

But in 2020, 50 years on from the release of the album, whales are once again in the global headlines for all the wrong reasons.

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...-do-we-need-to-save-the-whales-all-over-again

 

[CraigD]

Science and technology of the Casimir effect

Caused by simple fluctuations in space, the Casimir effect may validate theories of the cosmological constant and allow for measurements of ultrasmall magnetic fields.

In its simplest form, the Casimir effect is an attractive interaction between two uncharged and perfectly conducting plates held a short distance apart—usually less than a micron. Classically, the only attractive force acting between such plates should be gravity. But that’s vanishingly small for microscale objects. In 1948 theorist Hendrik Casimir predicted the existence of the now eponymous force on the scale of a few hundred piconewtons when the plates are held 100 nm apart. Seen experimentally many times, the force is a nanoscale phenomenon that arises from quantum fluctuations of the electromagnetic vacuum.

https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/PT.3.4656

 

[CraigD]

The Most Incredible Groundbreaking Results From Space Station Science in 2020

Dozens of experiments are going on at any given time aboard the International Space Station. Research conducted in 2020 is advancing our understanding in areas of study from Parkinson’s disease to combustion.

https://scitechdaily.com/the-most-i...g-results-from-space-station-science-in-2020/

 

[CraigD]

New Data Supports the Modified Gravity Explanation for Dark Matter, Much to the Surprise of the Researchers


Dark matter is an extremely good theory. It’s supported by a wealth of observational and computational data, which is why it’s part of the standard model of cosmology. But dark matter hasn’t been directly observed, so sometimes even strong supporters of dark matter are motivated to look at the alternatives.

The most popular alternative is known as Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MoND), also known as modified gravity. The evidence we have for dark matter assumes that our understanding of gravity is correct. Both Newtonian gravity and general relativity have been strongly confirmed by observations, so the dark matter assumption is perfectly reasonable. But MoND assumes that on a fundamental level our understanding of gravity is slightly wrong.

Overall this is a fascinating study. It doesn’t disprove dark matter, since numerous studies support the effects of dark matter, but it does support an aspect of modified gravity. It’s an unexpected result, and it needs to be studied further. MoND has long been out of favor among astronomers, but this study shows we shouldn’t believe the legend of its fall quite yet.

https://www.universetoday.com/14941...tter-much-to-the-surprise-of-the-researchers/

 

[CraigD]

Study of More Than 1 Million People Finds Intriguing Link Between Iron Levels And Lifespan

A massive study published in 2020 found evidence that blood iron levels could play a role in influencing how long you live.

It's always important to take longevity studies with a big grain of salt, but the research was impressive in its breadth, covering genetic information from well over 1 million people across three public databases. It also focused on three key measures of ageing: lifespan, years lived free of disease (referred to as healthspan), and making it to an extremely old age (AKA longevity).

Put simply, having too much iron in the blood appeared to be linked to an increased risk of dying earlier.

While correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation, the researchers used a statistical technique called Mendelian randomisation to reduce bias and attempt to infer causation in the data.


www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17312-3

This got me thinking. A relative of mine is over one-hundred years old, with nothing wrong with her except that she requires iron injections every few months.

 

[CraigD]

Happy Perihelion Day

At its closest point, Earth swings to within 91,399,453 miles (147,093,162 km) of the sun. That’s in contrast to six months from now, when the Earth reaches aphelion – its most distant point – on July 5, 2021. Then we’ll be 94,510,889 miles (152,100,533 km) from the sun.

In other words, Earth is roughly 3 million miles (5 million km) closer to the sun in early January than it is in early July. That’s always the case. Earth is closest to the sun every year in early January, when it’s winter for the Northern Hemisphere.

https://earthsky.org/tonight/earth-comes-closest-to-sun-every-year-in-early-january

 

[lock]

Happy Perihelion Day

At its closest point, Earth swings to within 91,399,453 miles (147,093,162 km) of the sun. That’s in contrast to six months from now, when the Earth reaches aphelion – its most distant point – on July 5, 2021. Then we’ll be 94,510,889 miles (152,100,533 km) from the sun.

In other words, Earth is roughly 3 million miles (5 million km) closer to the sun in early January than it is in early July. That’s always the case. Earth is closest to the sun every year in early January, when it’s winter for the Northern Hemisphere.

https://earthsky.org/tonight/earth-comes-closest-to-sun-every-year-in-early-january

slip on a shirt
slop on some sunscreen
slap on a hat
and don't worry too much about Russian satellights.

 

[CraigD]

slip on a shirt
slop on some sunscreen
slap on a hat
and don't worry too much about Russian satellights.

Look outside Bucko... it's raining


My favourite image & map of Earth

The Blue Marble

The Blue Marble photograph (photographed by Apollo 17, Dec. 7, 1972).

Tabula Rogeriana

The Nuzhat al-mushtāq fī ikhtirāq al-āfāq (Arabic: نزهة المشتاق في اختراق الآفاق‎, lit. "The Excursion of One Who is Eager to Traverse the Regions of the World"), commonly known in the West as the Tabula Rogeriana (lit. "The Map of Roger" in Latin), is a description of the world and world map created by the Arab geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi in 1154. Al-Idrisi worked on the commentaries and illustrations of the map for fifteen years at the court of the Norman King Roger II of Sicily, who commissioned the work around 1138. The map was utilised by various explorers such as Christopher Columbus and Vasco Da Gama for their voyages in America and India.


Further Information

 

[Sutruk]

This got me thinking. A relative of mine is over one-hundred years old, with nothing wrong with her except that she requires iron injections every few months.

I guess that's another kind of iron...

 

[Sutruk]

Look outside Bucko... it's raining


My favourite image & map of Earth

The Blue Marble

The Blue Marble photograph (photographed by Apollo 17, Dec. 7, 1972).

Tabula Rogeriana

The Nuzhat al-mushtāq fī ikhtirāq al-āfāq (Arabic: نزهة المشتاق في اختراق الآفاق‎, lit. "The Excursion of One Who is Eager to Traverse the Regions of the World"), commonly known in the West as the Tabula Rogeriana (lit. "The Map of Roger" in Latin), is a description of the world and world map created by the Arab geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi in 1154. Al-Idrisi worked on the commentaries and illustrations of the map for fifteen years at the court of the Norman King Roger II of Sicily, who commissioned the work around 1138. The map was utilised by various explorers such as Christopher Columbus and Vasco Da Gama for their voyages in America and India.


Further Information

Heyyyyy you found my avatar

 

[CraigD]

Heyyyyy you found my avatar

In it's original orientation...

 

[lock]

There was once a time you never saw space photos online I remember trying to look for them. Nasa has released a tonne over last 20 years.