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!

 

[Cannuck]

Footage of a drone flying right through an erupting volcano in Iceland

https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2021/...otage-fagradalsfjall?utm_source=pocket-newtab

 

[koolishman]

NASA declares Earth is safe from 'Apophis' asteroid for 100 years

NASA announced this week that Earth will remain safe from the threat of a specific asteroid's impact for at least the next 100 years.

According to the space agency, new telescope observations have ruled out the possibility of the 1,100-ft. asteroid "Apophis" coming in contact with Earth in 2068, The Associated Press reported.

NASA previously cited concerns that Apophis could come severely close to Earth in 2029 and in 2036 before recently ruling out those possibilities

Now, according to the news outlet, Apophis has been officially removed from the agency's asteroid “risk list.”

“A 2068 impact is not in the realm of possibility anymore, and our calculations don’t show any impact risk for at least the next 100 years,” Davide Farnocchia of NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies told the AP.

 

[J Sokol]

'The future of housing': California desert to get America's first 3D-printed neighborhood

The desert landscape of California’s Coachella Valley will soon be home to the first US neighborhood comprised entirely of 3D-printed houses.

Through a partnership between two California companies – Palari, a sustainable real estate development group, and Mighty Buildings, a construction technology company – a five acre parcel of land in Rancho Mirage will be transformed into a planned community of 15 3D-printed, eco-friendly homes claiming to be the first of its kind.

In the large warehouse of its Oakland headquarters, Mighty Buildings creates homes using massive 3D printers the size of small garages. The material used by Mighty Buildings hardens almost immediately, allowing a roof, layers of insulation, and exterior features such as an overhang to be added all in one process. Up to 80% of the construction can be automated, Mighty Buildings claims, with 95% fewer labor hours and 10 times less waste than conventional construction.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/mar/18/california-housing-coachella-3d-printed-houses

 

[koolishman]

Scientists Detect Signs of a Hidden Structure Inside Earth's Core

While most of us take the ground beneath our feet for granted, written within its complex layers, like pages of a book, is Earth's history. Our history.

Now researchers have found more evidence for a whole new chapter deep within Earth's past - Earth's inner core appears to have another even more inner core within it.

"Traditionally we've been taught the Earth has four main layers: the crust, the mantle, the outer core and the inner core," explained Australian National University geophysicist Joanne Stephenson.

Our knowledge of what lies beneath Earth's crust has been inferred mostly from what volcanoes have divulged and seismic waves have whispered. From these indirect observations scientists have calculated that the scorchingly hot inner core, with temperatures surpassing 5,000 degrees Celsius (9,000 Fahrenheit), makes up only one percent of Earth's total volume.

Now Stephenson and colleagues have found more evidence Earth's inner core may have two distinct layers.

"It's very exciting - and might mean we have to re-write the textbooks!" she added.

https://www.sciencealert.com/earth-...hints-at-an-even-more-dramatic-planet-history

This research was published in the Journal of Geophysical Research.

https://phys.org/news/2021-03-theory-large-blobs-material-earth.html
New theory suggests large blobs of material in Earth's mantle are remnants of protoplanet Theia

A team of scientists at Arizona State University has proposed that the large blobs of material in Earth's mantle (the large low-shear velocity provinces, LLSVPs) may be left over pieces of Theia, a protoplanet theorized to have struck Earth, resulting in the creation of the moon. The group argued their case at this year's Lunar and Planetary Science Conference and are awaiting publication in Geophysical Research Letters.


Two teams independently researching same thing?

 

[koolishman]

Mapping the ‘hidden’ eighth continent Zealandia

The ‘hidden’ continent of Zealandia is being partially mapped, thanks to a deepwater mapping expedition led by The University of Queensland in collaboration with Schmidt Ocean Institute.

The mostly-submerged continent has New Zealand and New Caledonia rising from its depths and was only put on the map by geologists in 2014.

 

[koolishman]

Super-cold thunderstorm sets temperature record

We've all seen those majestic anvil storm clouds that form on a hot summer's day, but what do you think is the temperature right at the very top?

It's very cold, obviously; at high altitude it is well below freezing.

But would you be surprised to learn it is sometimes below even minus 100C?

Indeed, scientists have just published research showing the top of one tropical storm cloud system in 2018 reached -111C. This is very likely a record low temperature.

It was seen on 29 December that year, just south of the equator in the western Pacific. The measurement was made by a passing American satellite, Noaa-20.

When a powerful upward draft reaches the top of the lower atmosphere, or troposphere, it will normally flatten and spread out to form that classic anvil shape.

But if the storm is very energetic, the upward movement of air can punch through the troposphere's ceiling, the tropopause, to keep on rising into the stratosphere, the next layer up in the atmosphere. In the 2018 event, the cloud top was at about 20.5km in altitude.

 

[Cannuck]

Mapping the ‘hidden’ eighth continent Zealandia

The ‘hidden’ continent of Zealandia is being partially mapped, thanks to a deepwater mapping expedition led by The University of Queensland in collaboration with Schmidt Ocean Institute.

The mostly-submerged continent has New Zealand and New Caledonia rising from its depths and was only put on the map by geologists in 2014.

Not completely submerged...a remnant of Zealandia - Ball's Pyramid in Lord Howe Island, Australia

 

[koolishman]

The best way to reduce your carbon footprint is one the government isn’t telling you about (2017 article)

Recycling and using public transit are all fine and good if you want to reduce your carbon footprint, but to truly make a difference you should have fewer children. That’s the conclusion of a new study in which researchers looked at 39 peer-reviewed papers, government reports, and web-based programs that assess how an individual’s lifestyle choices might shrink their personal share of emissions.

Many commonly promoted options, such as washing clothes in cold water or swapping incandescent bulbs for light-emitting diodes, have only a moderate impact (see chart, below), the team reports today in Environmental Research Letters. But four lifestyle choices had a major impact: Become a vegetarian, forego air travel, ditch your car, and—most significantly—have fewer children.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7541

 

[Cannuck]

What a Songbird Lost at Sea Taught Me About Survival

Aboard a mission to explore the alien life of the deep ocean, a chance encounter with a migratory bird offered a point of connection - one that has felt poignant this past year.

This team was there to find out about ecosystems in the surrounding deep ocean, toward the surface, or even up on land.. They also hoped to develop support to protect these seamounts and unique deep-sea habitats. The remoteness of these places was no longer enough to shelter them from threats like mining, fishing, and climate change.

During that cruise, these researchers studied hundreds of creatures, many new species, some unknown to science. These organisms hailed from depths so cold, dark, and weird that their existence was once thought impossible. But that bitty bird bewitched me. Who was she, and why was she there?

Read when you have time...

https://www.audubon.org/news/what-songbird-lost-sea-taught-me-about-survival/

 

[koolishman]

Elite philanthropy mainly self-serving

Philanthropy among the elite class in the United States and the United Kingdom does more to create goodwill for the super-wealthy than to alleviate social ills for the poor, according to a new meta-analysis.

A group of U.K. researchers reviewed 263 journal articles, books and studies on elite philanthropy to better understand the role it plays in this new age of inequality. In the United States, the wealth gap between richest and poorer families has more than doubled since the 1980s, and in the United Kingdom, the incomes of the richest fifth are 12 times as much as the incomes of the poorest fifth.

The researchers' paper, published in a special issue of the International Journal of Management Reviews, lays out how on the whole, the elite class mainly donates to causes that provide themselves with some type of benefit. The researchers defined "elite philanthropy" as "the preserve of wealthy individuals and close family members" who became rich through entrepreneurship, either by starting a new business or expanding an inherited one. These individuals generally have extensive local, national and international business networks, the researchers said, and occupy positions with the "field of power," a social space at the top of society that allows them to impact policy and practice.

Where wealthy elites donate their money is shaped by where they can have the most influence on a local, national and international level, researchers said; maintaining their "field of power," which allows them to use their business ties to influence the political sphere, is also a motivating factor in their philanthropy. For example, one study of 194 elite philanthropists in the United States found that 104 of them actively worked to sway public policy by funding research and advocacy organizations.


https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ijmr.12247

 

[koolishman]

https://www.earthhour.org

Earth hour is being held today 27th March 2021.

Started by WWF and partners as a symbolic lights-out event in Sydney in 2007, Earth Hour is now one of the world's largest grassroots movements for the environment. Held every year on the last Saturday of March, Earth Hour engages millions of people in more than 180 countries and territories, switching off their lights to show support for our planet.

But Earth Hour goes far beyond the symbolic action of switching off - it has become a catalyst for positive environmental impact, driving major legislative changes by harnessing the power of the people and collective action.

Earth Hour is open-source and we welcome everyone, anyone, to take part and help amplify our mission to unite people to protect our planet.

 

[koolishman]

How Ancient 'Deer' Lost Their Legs and Became Whales

The largest animals that have ever existed on our planet descended from a miniature deer-like creature that walked on four legs in the swamps of ancient India.

Cetaceans include everything from dolphins to whales. They are fairly unique among mammals in that they live permanently in the sea — something they share with only a few other types of live-bearing, warm-blooded species.

But their evolutionary ancestors weren’t always the seafaring types. In fact, just 50 million years ago, ancestors of all cetaceans were small creatures called Indohyus that waded through swamps on four legs.

The Land of Indohyus

Indohyus belonged to the even-toed group of ungulates, which today includes giraffes, horses, pigs and cetaceans. Research shows that back in the Eocene epoch roughly 50 million years ago, Indohyus lived in modern-day India and Pakistan. Today, a distant deer-like relative called the water chevrotain (or African mouse-deer) can be found from central to southern Africa. These deer eat flowers and fruits and live near rivers, which they use as escape routes to flee land-based predators or even eagles.


A Taste for Meat

The evolutionary descendant of Indohyus, called Pakicetus, began to adopt a more aquatic lifestyle as they abandoned a vegetarian diet, based on the way their teeth look, Thewissen says. These creatures looked a little like wolves with elongated bodies, and also lived in the India-Pakistan region. Remaining fossils of these extinct animals have only been found in rocks, which tells us that they likely spent a lot of time in shallow pools of water.

 

[J Sokol]

Recycling and using public transit are all fine and good if you want to reduce your carbon footprint, but to truly make a difference you should have fewer children.

According to Shanna Swan, we're headed towards the opposite of overpopulation. It's interesting to have both concerns at the same time.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/26/falling-sperm-counts-human-survival

Falling sperm counts and changes to sexual development are “threatening human survival” and leading to a fertility crisis, a leading epidemiologist has warned.

Writing in a new book, Shanna Swan, an environmental and reproductive epidemiologist at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, warns that the impending fertility crisis poses a global threat comparable to that of the climate crisis.

 

[koolishman]

According to Shanna Swan, we're headed towards the opposite of overpopulation. It's interesting to have both concerns at the same time.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/26/falling-sperm-counts-human-survival

Falling sperm counts and changes to sexual development are “threatening human survival” and leading to a fertility crisis, a leading epidemiologist has warned.

Writing in a new book, Shanna Swan, an environmental and reproductive epidemiologist at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, warns that the impending fertility crisis poses a global threat comparable to that of the climate crisis.

So, self-destruction!

Nature will find a way.

 

[J Sokol]

At 7.8 billion people, I'd say overpopulation is the bigger concern for now.

 

[CraigD]

Scientists Thrilled to Observe The First Milliseconds of Gold Crystal Formation

We now know how gold crystals start to form at the atomic scale.

For the first time, scientists have observed – and filmed! – the first milliseconds of gold crystal formation and found that it's much more complicated than previous research suggested. Rather than a single, irreversible transition, the atoms come together and fall apart multiple times before stabilizing into a crystal.

This discovery has implications for both materials science and manufacturing, as it bolsters our understanding of how materials come together out of a messy pile of atoms.
"As scientists seek to control matter at smaller length scales to produce new materials and devices, this study helps us understand exactly how some crystals form," explained physicist Peter Ercius of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

According to the classic understanding of nucleation – the very first part of crystal formation, in which atoms begin to self-assemble – the process is a pretty linear one. You put a bunch of atoms together under the right conditions, and they'll gradually build themselves into a crystal.

This process, however, is not easy to observe. It's a dynamic process that happens on extremely small scales, both spatially and temporally, and often has an element of randomness involved. But our technology has improved to the point that we can now observe processes on the atomic scale.

Just earlier this year, a team of Japanese scientists revealed that they'd been able to observe salt crystal nucleation. Now a Korean and American team led by engineer Sungho Jeon of the Hanyang University in the Republic of Korea has done the same with gold.

Read on...

https://www.sciencealert.com/scient...-first-milliseconds-of-gold-crystal-formation

 

[CraigD]

DARPA takes step toward 'holy grail of encryption'

The U.S. defense department is searching for what could be considered the "holy grail of data encryption," which would seal up a loophole that allows hackers to access sensitive information while it's being processed.

In modern encryption, a well-defined set of calculations, known as an algorithm, scrambles data so that it's no longer readable. Those allowed access to the data are given a string of numbers called a key, which is the code that lets you unscramble that data again.

computers. But, as is apparent from regular headlines about data breaches at major organizations, it's becoming difficult to tell which devices are secure.

"Given all of the news about these hacks, these malware attacks, we can't trust fully all of our hardware or software systems," Tom Rondeau, a program manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), told Live Science.

That's why DARPA is trying to spur breakthroughs in something called fully homomorphic encryption (FHE). The technique makes it possible to analyze compute data while it's still in encrypted form. That could allow financial crimes investigators to scour sensitive bank records without exposing customer details, for instance, or let health researchers analyze private health data while preserving patients' privacy, Rondeau said. The technique could also help the military keep their battlefield data more secure and make it easier to let allies work with classified intelligence data.

Read on...

https://www.livescience.com/darpa-holy-grail-encryption.html

 

[CraigD]

Why Countries Are Desperate To Get Back To The Moon

Countries like China, the US, and Russia are setting their sights on the Moon. But is it purely for the advancement of mankind, or is there profit to be found?

Well, profit obviously drives exploration... or the gaols are full and a new penal colony need to be established!

 

[CraigD]

The Parking Spaces of Space: The Lagrange Points

The Lagrange Points are places where the forces acting on an object are perfectly balanced so that its orbit does not change.

Geostationary, Molniya, Tundra, Polar & Sun Synchronous Orbits Explained

Illustrating different classes of orbits commonly used by satellites in Earth orbit, there are special classes of orbit designed to solve certain problems and the physics behind them is important.

jhyfy

 

[CraigD]

Decades Old Nuclear Missiles Finally Launched As Orbital Rockets

The Minotaur Series of rockets developed by Orbital Sciences corporation probably incorporate some of the oldest bits of hardware currently launching things into space. The Minotaur 1 is based on old Minuteman II boosters, while the Minotaur IV uses old Peacekeeper boosters.

These use missiles which were decommissioned and placed in storage decades ago, but with some quality checks they're cleared to fly again and carry government payloads into space.

 

[CraigD]

Ever Given has been freed from the mud, unblocking the Suez!

The Ever Given is finally afloat, according to shipping company Inchcape.

The Ever Given was lodged firmly into the embankments on each side of the Suez Canal. Now, after six days of rigorous efforts, the ship has been refloated, according to Inchcape.

"The MV Ever Given was successfully re-floated at 04:30 lt 29/03/2021. She is being secured at the moment. More information about next steps will follow once they are known," the company tweeted.

https://www.cnet.com/news/ever-given-in-the-suez-canal-now-afloat-everything-you-need-to-know/


Ever Given: Stranded Suez container ship reported freed

Video posted social media on Monday appeared to show the stern of the Ever Given swung towards the canal bank, opening space in the channel. Maritime services company Inchcape also reported the vessel was freed.

Refloating the ship was a lengthy effort involving tugboats and dredgers.

The canal, which runs through Egypt, is one of the busiest trade routes.

The grounding of the Ever Given - part of the Evergreen fleet - meant other ships had to reroute around Africa.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-56559904

 

[koolishman]

/\ /\

Freed but not yet re-floated looks like.

 

[CraigD]

/\ /\

Freed but not yet re-floated looks like.

It's disturbing how one bottle-neck can influence trade and stock-market prices world-wide.
369 vessels currently waiting for the Suez to reopen.

Aljazeera are providing regular updates here:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/3/29/ever-given-turned-80-percent-in-right-direction-live-news

Go tugboats!

How Tugboats Work

 

[CraigD]

SPACEX STARSHIP SN11 LAUNCH LIVE: ELON MUSK SAYS MARS-BOUND ROCKET 10KM TEST ATTEMPT TODAY

SpaceX will once again attempt to launch and land a Starship rocket, three weeks after the last test ended in a fiery explosion.

Starship SN11 is already on the launchpad at SpaceX’s Boca Chica facility in Texas and has performed all necessary static fire tests required to fly.

A previous launch attempt was scrubbed on Friday due to adverse weather conditions but SpaceX boss Elon Musk said to a expect a “possible Starship flight” on Monday.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-...ch-live-starship-sn11-elon-musk-b1823788.html

 

[CraigD]

The moon that made Saturn a pushover

Scientists have a new theory for how the ringed planet got its tilt.

Titan, Saturn’s biggest moon, probably helped to cause the ringed planet to start tipping off-kilter long ago.

Saturn is tilted with respect to its orbit around the Sun, by a little bit more than Earth is. Planetary scientists had thought that Saturn acquired its tilt more than 4 billion years ago, thanks to the gravitational influence of Neptune.

But recent measurements made with NASA’s Cassini spacecraft show that Titan is moving relatively rapidly away from Saturn. Melaine Saillenfest at the Paris Observatory and his colleagues capitalized on that finding to suggest that Titan is to blame for Saturn’s tilt.

Their calculations suggest that, around one billion years ago, Titan was migrating away from Saturn and led the planet into a gravitational interaction with Neptune — which steadily tilted Saturn over.

Big migrating moons could similarly cause giant planets in other solar systems to keel over.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00174-0