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!

 

[topdom]

https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Apollo11MoonLanding/story?id=8104410

https://www.theguardian.com/science/gallery/2009/jun/29/apollo-11-moon-landing-hoax

If people went to the Moon, they would see a big beautiful "Moon" in the sky called Earth. Why not take a picture of it. Why not mention it. The earth would always be visible, because the Moon can never block all of the sunlight, and these people "landed" on the side of the Moon which faces the Earth (and the other side would be even more difficult to land on, because the big mass of the Moon would then block wireless communication).

Edit: minor detail: Ok, the Earth may become invisible from this side of the Moon in rare situations, but then it seems the Sun would also become invisible, because this can happen only if the Earth is between the Moon and the Sun. But it would be stupid and dangerous to choose a time like this to land, because astronauts can't see the Moon, (no light coming from the Sun), and Earth and Sun are also invisible. So there are no references to decide in which direction to move.


And here is a 1 line proof of fake Moon landing: Moon dust trajectory is not parabolic. Dust hits the air on the "Moon" which doesn't exist. Also gravity acceleration is much closer to 9,8 than 1,6.
meter/second^2. Go to 35:20 below.

It is disappoining that 25 percent of British people don't believe Moon landing. It should have been 100 percent.
Unmanned Moon landings exist. Probably not very difficult. Going there alive and come back, can be possible, but it would be very difficult and expensive even today, and impossible in 1969.

 

[topdom]

One proof is enough. Despite air friction water moves along (almost perfect) parabolas in the movie below. And Moon dust trajectories had to be even more perfect parabolic arcs, how small the particle sizes are.

"Scientists" are scared of the deepstate and can't tell the truth directly.

Russia says in its RT.com advertisements , we were the first country in the space (slightly above the Earth). Ok, but if you are at least 50 years behind US in the space race why be proud of it.

I think US and Russia made a deal. US would "beat" Russia in space race, and then could leave gold standard of US dollar (and avoid bankruptcy), and a war would start in the middleeast between Israel and arabs, and this would be an excuse for increasing oil price 3-4 fold, and US would switch to petro-dollar standard and could get more debt (print more money), and Russia would make more money from higher oil prices, ..for a while at least , like 40-50 years.. .. And now it is time to switch to the new financial system.

....
Images of the Earth can be added later to pictures. I would prefer to see a movie of it.

 

[topdom]

Proof we landed on the Moon is in the dust | Popular Science (popsci.com)
https://www.popsci.com/blog-network/vintage-space/proof-we-landed-moon-dust/

There is an entire study by real scientists devoted to this effect.

"Because the dust in the images is so fine it was impossible to track any individual grains. Instead, they used the top of the dust cloud as their marker. Tracking the movement of the dust cloud clearly shows characteristic rooster tails and not the simple parabolic arc of a dust cloud we would see produced by a rover driving through, say, dust on Earth. This specific rooster tail shape is contingent on the lunar environment: the initial velocity of dust particles based on the rover’s speed, the gravitational field strength that is one-sixth what we have on Earth, and the complete lack of air resistance because the Moon has no appreciable atmosphere. Turning this visual data in to formulas allowed Hsu and Horányi to plot the movement of dust on a graph, turning the Grand Prix’s rooster tails into a mathematical visualization."

And here is your film footage (hand held super-8, and B+W television camera) of the Earth from Apollo 8 in orbit around the Moon.



This is a thread about science and technology - not about Deepstate conspiracy theories

She claims trajectories would be parabolic on the Earth and not parabolic on the Moon because of low gravity and spinning .. Nonsense. On the Earth trajectories would be close to or far away from a parabola depending on things affecting air friction, such as weight, shape, size of objects. Spinning wouldn't affect trajectories much, affects very little on the Earth (depends on shape etc..), almost none on the Moon (or just, none, if we look at centers of mass of each particle). On the Moon trajectories would be perfect parabolic arcs.

Yes Moon dust would go higher with the same initial speed, and formula is h=v^2/2g.
v here is the initial vertical speed. On the Moon, dust particles would go up 6 times higher.
But we don't see such a thing in that movie. Moon dust is lost in the air, we can't even follow their trajectories. We are supposed to see many parabolas almost parallel to each other as in the water movie above. Dust would go higher, and still fall and complete the parabola. Here dust doesn't even fall.

Movement of an object is determined by 2 things. Existing speed, and forces. On the earth there may be air friction and wind in addition to gravity. On the Moon there is only one force: Moon's gravity. All other forces, like gravity and magentic fields of other space objects (Earth, Jupiter, Sun, blackholes,..) would be either ignorable, or even if not, have no effect even if large, because (probably) the same gravity (or magentic) forces affect both the Moon and particles proportionally, and here we are looking at relative motions of the Moon and Moon dust.

Edit: in unquoted video we can see the Earth from a distance (as a big beautiful blue (bbb) sphere,.. )those films must have been taken from unmanned spacecrafts, otherwise leaving the earth that far would expose astronauts to high levels of Van Allen radiation.

 

[CraigD]

Suez Canal blocked after massive container ship Ever Given gets stuck sideways

A 400-metre-long container ship is holding up traffic in the Suez Canal after becoming wedged sideways as it passed through the major shipping route.

 

[CraigD]

North Korea claims 'new tactical guided' missiles launched

North Korea has claimed the missiles it launched Thursday were a "new-type tactical guided projectile", in its first statement since the test.

It was the country's first ballistic launch in almost a year and the first since Joe Biden became US President.

Mr Biden has said the US will "respond accordingly". The US, Japan and South Korea have condemned the tests.

Under UN Security Council resolutions, Pyongyang is banned from testing ballistic missiles.

North Korea's Friday statement says the two weapons struck a test target 600km (373 miles) off North Korea's east coast, disputing Japanese assessments that they flew just over 400km.

"The development of this weapon system is of great significance in bolstering up the military power of the country and deterring all sorts of military threats," Ri Pyong Chol, the senior leader who oversaw the test, said according to the North Korean release. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was not present.

According to Pyongyang, the new missile is able to carry a payload of 2.5 tons which would make it capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.

Read on...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-56533260

 

[CraigD]

Red Arrows grounded after Royal Navy Hawk T1 crash in Cornwall

Two pilots ejected and were taken to hospital

Ejection seat manufacturer Martin-Baker said it was the first Royal Navy ejection in 18 years.

The company wrote on Facebook: “A Royal Navy Hawk aircraft from 736 Naval Air Squadron crashed this morning during a flight from RNAS Culdrose. Both pilots ejected successfully.

“This is the first Royal Navy ejection in 18 years with the last being Martin-Baker’s 7,000th ejection back in 2003.”

Read on...

https://www.lincolnshirelive.co.uk/news/local-news/red-arrows-grounded-after-royal-5230504


After further research, I've found some interesting information not mentioned in the article:

In August 2011, a Red Arrows pilot was killed when his Hawk T1 crashed following a display at the Bournemouth Air Festival;, the inquest found "G-force impairment" may have caused the pilot to lose control. The Hawk T1 fleet was grounded as a precautionary measure and returned to flight status a few days later.

In November 2011, the Red Arrows suffered another pilot fatality when the Martin-Baker Mk.10 ejection seat fitted to the Hawk T1 activated while the aircraft was stationary; the veteran combat pilot died on ground impact when the ejector seat parachute also failed to deploy.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAE_Systems_Hawk#United_Kingdom


Further information:

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

Earlier this month it was announced that the Red Arrows would continue flying following a sponsorship deal that saved them from being retired alongside the RAF's other 76 Hawk T1 trainers.

 

[CraigD]

Bioplastic made from wood powder entirely degrades in three months

Motivated by our growing problem with plastics, which are environmentally damaging both to produce and after they're disposed of, scientists are tinkering away with more eco-friendly forms of the material. Researchers at Yale University have put forward a candidate that ticks a number of important boxes, developing a new bioplastic with high strength but an ability to degrade entirely in the space of three months.
The team at Yale began with a wood powder that is a typical waste product at lumber mills, and used a biodegradable solvent to reduce it to a slurry of organic polymers and cellulose with hydrogen bonding and entanglement at a nanoscale level. This slurry was then able to be cast as a bioplastic, which the team put to the test against conventional plastics.

The experiments involved burying sheets of the bioplastic in soil, where they became fractured after two weeks and degraded completely in three months. The bioplastic also exhibited high mechanical strength, stability when made to hold liquids, and resistance to UV light.


“There are many people who have tried to develop these kinds of polymers in plastic, but the mechanical strands are not good enough to replace the plastics we currently use, which are made mostly from fossil fuels,” says co-author Yuan Yao. “We’ve developed a straightforward and simple manufacturing process that generates biomass-based plastics from wood, but also plastic that delivers good mechanical properties as well.”

In addition to degrading at a rapid rate, the bioplastic can also be returned to its original slurry form, which allows the solvent to be recovered and reused.

I'm not exactly sure how this process works, but I'm wondering if when this bioplastic breaks down, does it leave billions of microplastics in the environment?

Just because we can't see it, doesn't mean it's not there.

 

[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

Today’s flight has been scrubbed.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says the delay relates to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and that another attempt will be made tomorrow.

 

[CraigD]

First Evidence of Animal and Human DNA Collection From Air

In a proof-of-concept study, scientists from Queen Mary University of London have collected and sequenced animal DNA from the air. Their research is published in the journal PeerJ.

The ability to collect and sequence DNA that has been shed into the environment – known as environmental DNA, or "eDNA" – is a fairly novel concept that is emerging as a useful tool for the study of ecosystems and biosurveillance. It can be collected from samples such as soil, sediment and water, and "has many uses," says Dr Elizabeth Clare, molecular ecologist at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL). "The most common research is to collect eDNA to study aquatic populations like fish," she adds.

The study analyzed air from a dedicated animal housing room that had been home to naked mole-rats (Heterocephalus glaber) for a year. The room had been accessed by researchers that were caring for the animals.

"We collected samples 'paired' from within the main room with the filter pointing away from the colony and then with the filter inside one artificial burrow, 'Colony Omega' which contained 29 individuals within a system of acrylic boxes (3.6m3) with tubing 4.4m in length and 45mm in internal diameter," the authors write in the publication.

Following a protocol by Crauaud et al., Clare and colleagues extracted the DNA before amplifying it using PCR and conducting high-throughput sequencing.2 Mole-rat DNA was recovered from both the burrows and regular air samples, which demonstrates that airDNA is able to move beyond the burrow system of the mole-rats.

Unexpectedly, human DNA was also detected in all samples, including the controls. Clare recalls feeling a mixture of frustration followed by intrigue at this point in the study: "At first we were just thinking of it as a contamination. Now we are thinking of this as a new avenue of research."

Forensic scientists will soon be able to place someone at a crime scene no matter how careful they are.

 

[koolishman]

The Asteroid That Killed the Dinosaurs Created the Amazon Rain Forest

Dinosaur and fossil aficionados are intimately familiar with the meteorite strike that drove Tyrannosaurus rex and all nonavian dinosaurs to extinction around 66 million years ago. But it is often overlooked that the impact also wiped out entire ecosystems. A new study shows how those casualties, in turn, led to another particularly profound evolutionary outcome: the emergence of the Amazon rain forest of South America, the most spectacularly diverse environment on the planet. Yet the Amazon’s bounty of tropical species and habitats now face their own existential threat because of unprecedented destruction from human activity, including land clearing for agriculture.

The new study, published on Thursday in Science, analyzed tens of thousands of plant fossils and represents “a fundamental advance in knowledge,” says Peter Wilf, a geoscientist at Pennsylvania State University, who was not involved in the research. “The authors demonstrate that the dinosaur extinction was also a massive reset event for neotropical ecosystems, putting their evolution on an entirely new path leading directly to the extraordinary, diverse, spectacular and gravely threatened rain forests in the region today.”

These insights, Wilf adds, “provide new impetus for the conservation of the living evolutionary heritage in the tropics that supports human life, along with millions of living species.”

 

[koolishman]

These Prehistoric Sharks Had Jaws Shaped Like Circular Saws and Sawtoothed Scissors

Imagine a great white shark with a set of sawtoothed scissors for a mouth. Ridiculous as that image might seem at first, such a creature once swam through Earth’s seas. More than 300 million years ago, Edestus giganteous bit through its fishy prey with a set of thin, blade like jaws with each serrated tooth set in line right behind the last. There’s nothing quite like this fish alive today, and paleontologists have only recently been able to piece together the relevant clues to understand Edestus and other strange shark relatives from the deep past.

The fossils were awaiting technologies capable of revealing the elusive structures of jaws. For more than a century after fish like Edestus were first described, experts could only look at the shape of fossils containing teeth and wonder about what was inside. CT scans and paleo visualization software can now see inside the fossils to capture cartilaginous anatomy that holds clues about what these animals were doing. The resulting research indicates that prehistoric sharks and their relatives bit down in ways that seem alien to scientists now. Shark relatives had buzzsaw arrangements in their lower jaws and jaws that could swing out side-to-side to impale prey. By understanding how these predators captured prey, scientists can better understand what role they played in ancient ecosystems.

 

[Compassion]

Earth's Untapped Free Energy

 

[Sutruk]

When you say '6 point buck' does that mean how many points you score for hitting it?

 

[koolishman]

How a shocking environmental disaster was uncovered off the California coast after 70 years

Just 10 miles off the coast of Los Angeles lurks an environmental disaster over 70 years in the making, which few have ever heard about. That is, until now, thanks to the research of a University of California marine scientist named David Valentine.

Working with little more than rumors and a hunch, curiosity guided him 3,000 feet below the ocean's surface. A few hours of research time and an autonomous robotic submersible unearthed what had been hidden since the 1940s: countless barrels of toxic waste, laced with DDT, littering the ocean floor in between Long Beach and Catalina Island.

The fact that his underwater camera spotted dozens of decaying barrels immediately in what is otherwise a barren, desert-like sea floor, Valentine says, is evidence that the number of barrels is likely immense. Although the exact number is still unknown, a historical account estimates it may be as many as a half a million.

 

[CraigD]

 

[CraigD]

Rare orchid lures in beetle pollinators using deceitful sexual bait

Longhorn beetles deposit sperm in orchids they pollinate, but why?

An exceedingly rare species of orchid, Disa forficaria, found in southern Africa, does not produce nectar. Yet, it is reliably visited by males of the longhorn beetle, Chorothyse hessei, which carry away its pollen packets attached to their underside. Before they depart, though, the beetles exhibit vigorous copulatory behavior perched on top of the orchid flower. They bite the furry antennae-like petals and extend their aedeagus — an arthropod equivalent of a penis — to fit into a floral notch. These visits often end in ejaculation, with sperm being deposited at the floral tip. The beetles are under the false impression that the orchid flowers are females of their species. But why?

Callan Cohen, from the University of Cape Town, who first observed this behavior in the longhorn beetles, investigated the reason behind this unusual sexual encounter. He separated the chemicals released by the orchid flower and tested the response of the beetle antennae, an organ which they use to detect odors, to each of them. One of these compounds, named “disalactone”, produced electrical responses in the antennae of all tested individuals. The odor molecule was exceedingly attractive to male beetles, so much so that disalactone beads treated with it not only drew in the beetles, but also enticed them to try and mate with them. While it is presumed that the scent must be the same as that of female longhorns, until scientists catch and examine one, we won’t know for sure.

The background bokeh in that image is messing with my eyes. I think it's been taken with a mirror lens.

 

[CraigD]

I also had the opportunity to play "Viking Chess" or "Hnefatafl" while in Scandinavia. It's a different variation, Hnefatafl simulates a Viking raid.

The 16 attackers are situated along the four sides of the board, each side representing a ship. The king and the 8 defenders are located in the middle of the board surrounded by enemies. The board is 9 x 9 spaces.

http://mythologyteacher.com/documents/Viking_Chess.pdf

That looks very interesting!

With the defender controlling the center of the board, I imagine that having only half the number of pieces would not be a huge disadvantage?

 

[CraigD]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1389573024924459011

 

[CraigD]

Sharks use Earth's magnetic fields to guide them like a map

Sea turtles are known for relying on magnetic signatures to find their way across thousands of miles to the very beaches where they hatched. Now, researchers reporting in the journal Current Biology on May 6 have some of the first solid evidence that sharks also rely on magnetic fields for their long-distance forays across the sea.

"It had been unresolved how sharks managed to successfully navigate during migration to targeted locations," said Save Our Seas Foundation project leader Bryan Keller, also of Florida State University Coastal and Marine Laboratory. "This research supports the theory that they use the earth's magnetic field to help them find their way; it's nature's GPS."

Read on...

https://phys.org/news/2021-05-sharks-earth-magnetic-fields.html

 

[CraigD]

China rocket falling to earth live tracking .

The Santa Tracker is more precise

Some interesting tweets including videos of re-entry over a number a countries...

https://twitter.com/hashtag/LongMarch5B
https://twitter.com/hashtag/ChineseRocketFalling

 

[CraigD]

Scientists Discover New Auroral Phenomenon Hidden in 19-Year-Old Video Footage

Not all auroras slither through the sky like snakes. Some – called diffuse aurora – are more like an even glow dispersed throughout the sky.

Scientists know a fair bit about these diffuse auroras, but an old video from 2002 revealing what seems to be an undocumented auroral phenomenon shows we definitely don't know everything.

"We found these events in a movie taken the night of March 15, 2002 in Churchill, [Manitoba], Canada," the researchers write in a summary of their research.

"They appear as a section of diffuse aurora that rapidly brightens, then disappears and also erases the background aurora. Then, over the course of several tens of seconds, the diffuse aurora recovers to its original brightness."

Read on...

https://www.sciencealert.com/scient...f-auroral-phenomenon-from-a-20-year-old-video

 

[CraigD]

How Oldschool Sound/Music worked

In this video, we'll cover 3 different eras of computer music, the Internal Speaker, FM Synthesis, and PCM Samples.

 

[CraigD]

How Machine Language Works

 

[CraigD]

Automated Voice Recognition Typewriter

An automated typewriter that takes dictation. A few details: Some code running on my laptop (off screen) uses Windows' voice recognition to turn speech to text. Commands for the typing mechanism are then sent to the Pololu servo controller. The Arduino Uno and Big Easy Driver control the carriage return arm and are signaled when the new line routine is called. The "arms" move on short linear rail segments. I cut the custom parts out of acrylic on a friend's CNC (thanks to kiteandrocket.com).

 

[karamakate]

Voyager 1 Is Detecting a 'Hum' of Plasma Waves in The Void of Interstellar Space

https://www.sciencealert.com/voyage...lasma-waves-in-the-void-of-interstellar-space