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]

LK-99 isn’t a superconductor — how science sleuths solved the mystery​

Researchers seem to have solved the puzzle of LK-99. Scientific detective work has unearthed evidence that the material is not a superconductor, and clarified its actual properties.

The conclusion dashes hopes that LK-99 — a compound of copper, lead, phosphorus and oxygen — marked the discovery of the first superconductor that works at room temperature and ambient pressure. Instead, studies have shown that impurities in the material — in particular, copper sulfide — were responsible for the sharp drops in electrical resistivity and partial levitation over a magnet, which looked similar to properties exhibited by superconductors.

“I think things are pretty decisively settled at this point,” says Inna Vishik, a condensed-matter experimentalist at the University of California, Davis.

As a runner up:

MIT engineers create an energy-storing supercapacitor from ancient materials​

MIT engineers have created a “supercapacitor” made of ancient, abundant materials, that can store large amounts of energy. Made of just cement, water, and carbon black (which resembles powdered charcoal), the device could form the basis for inexpensive systems that store intermittently renewable energy, such as solar or wind energy. .......

Ulm says that the system is very scalable, as the energy-storage capacity is a direct function of the volume of the electrodes. “You can go from 1-millimeter-thick electrodes to 1-meter-thick electrodes, and by doing so basically you can scale the energy storage capacity from lighting an LED for a few seconds, to powering a whole house,” he says.

Depending on the properties desired for a given application, the system could be tuned by adjusting the mixture. For a vehicle-charging road, very fast charging and discharging rates would be needed, while for powering a home “you have the whole day to charge it up,” so slower-charging material could be used, Ulm says.

“So, it’s really a multifunctional material,” he adds. Besides its ability to store energy in the form of supercapacitors, the same kind of concrete mixture can be used as a heating system, by simply applying electricity to the carbon-laced concrete.

Ulm sees this as “a new way of looking toward the future of concrete as part of the energy transition.”

https://news.mit.edu/2023/mit-engineers-create-supercapacitor-ancient-materials-0731

 

[koolishman]

If you thought flash drives were small, wait until you see this: Researchers have encoded the data to make a short video into the DNA molecules of bacteria. They also were able to retrieve the information from the genetic code and play back the movie.

Link from 2017.

https://www.livescience.com/59791-dna-movie.html

 

[Cannuck]

The one thing(s) that has always fascinated me is what we know to be there but cant explain...dark matter and dark energy. It will likely be more mind boggling than many expect, once we understand.

A billion tiny pendulums could detect the universe's missing mass

"Dark matter makes up about 27% of the universe; ordinary matter, such as the stuff that builds stars and planets, accounts for just 5% of the cosmos. (A mysterious entity called dark energy accounts for the other 68%.)"

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/10/201014160510.htm

Further to that, from a recent post... new study could help solve many problems in modern physics:

A unifying theory of dark energy and dark matter: Negative masses and matter creation within a modified ΛCDM framework

https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018A&A...620A..92F/abstract

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/bizarre-dark-fluid-with-negative-mass-could-dominate-the-universe-what-my-research-suggests/

 

[koolishman]

Creature with Interlocking Gears on Legs Discovered (2013)

A species of plant-hopping insect, Issus coleoptratus, is the first living creature known to possess functional gears, a new study finds. The two interlocking gears on the insect's hind legs help synchronize the legs when the animal jumps.

So, humans did not know functional gears existed in nature when they developed them.

Video

 

[Mister Funsky]

A glimpse of things to come...

Quantum optical micro-combs

"These devices will enable an unprecedented level of sophistication in generating entangled photons on a chip – a key breakthrough that, in my opinion, could very well accelerate the quest of achieving so-called 'quantum supremacy' – quantum devices that have the ability to perform functions beyond the capability of conventional electronic computers"

https://phys.org/news/2019-02-quant...mbs are,component of quantum computer systems.

Ultra-dense optical data transmission over standard fibre with a single chip source

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16265-x

 

[koolishman]

Nasa's Osiris-Rex probe aims for daring 'high five' with asteroid Bennu
An American spacecraft is about to attempt the audacious task of grabbing rock samples from an asteroid.

The Osiris-Rex probe will lower itself on to the 500m-wide object known as Bennu to make a contact that lasts no more than a few seconds.

But in the course of this "high-five" manoeuvre, the spacecraft will deliver a squirt of gas to stir up the surface.

NASA live event Link

 

[koolishman]

A forest-based yard improved the immune system of daycare children in only a month

During the study, forest undergrowth, lawn turf and planter boxes, in which children planted and tended crops, were added to paved, tiled and gravel-coated yard areas at daycare centres.

Contact with nature repeated five times a week during one month increased microbial diversity in children’s skin. There were also changes in blood counts. Increases in gammaproteobacteria, which strengthen the skin’s immune defence, increased the content of the multifunctional TGF-β1-cytokine in blood and reduced the content of interleukin-17A, which is connected to immune-transmitted diseases.

 

[koolishman]

I guess it is time to say,

Happy new year everyone!

May 2021 be personally fulfilling and professionally enriching!

 

[Sutruk]

I guess it is time to say,

Happy new year everyone!

My 2021 be personally fulfilling and professionally enriching!

I'm sitting at home on the computer because most of my family is in lockdown, we're not allowed gatherings over five people anywhere else in Sydney, I can't go to the fireworks because of restrictions AND it's raining outside.

LOL yes,

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE

Happy New Year to everyone!
Although due to pandemic restrictions, this new year celebration must be a more restricted one.
This new year coming will be a better year with vaccines to come to end this 1 in 100 years pandemic.
I wish the best to everyone and I also wish good education to everybody, read this thread and study whatever on a certified college, to be a more informed person, and don't fall into infinite ignorance.

 

[Cal2]

Hearing this after a long time.

Thank you.

Glad it served.

I came across a copy the other day while cleaning up my home office, and thought it's something I'm going to read and listen to at the beginning of each day for the next while, to stay in tune with what I want and should be doing more of with my existence in 2021. (Desiderata ~ 'Things that are desired')

Fyi, I was adjusting a bit that Desiderata copy this morning - making it more personalized/relevant to my current situation. Eg. I gave the line "Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexations to the spirit" its own space at this time, to emphasize one thing I should be doing more of when it comes to some others.

Current draft:

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant - they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. Do not distress yourself with dark imaginings; many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be.

And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.

Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

 

[koolishman]

Question: What possesses people to document everything they do to social-media platforms?

I'm asking this out of an incredulous curiosity, as the FBI arrests protestors and rioters following the events that have occurred across the USA over the past ten months. Much of the evidence they are being arrested on was produced and published by themselves or aquaintances.

It's understandable when a couple of people document a situation, but when I watch these incidents unfold on television, the majority of participants are filming. What's the point?

In the past I have worked as stills photographer, but my subjects knew that I was documenting them for a fee or for media publication. What I have been witnessing recently is something much more insidious and narcissistic. It's very disturbing.

Would be interested to hear your thoughts and read some studies on this phenomena.

Jaron Lanier, author of “Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now,” argues that it boils down to addiction — both to politics and to screens. “The process of addiction does harm to judgment,” he said. “Addicts get stupid, and these people have behavioral addictions fostered by old-fashioned cultism plus new-fashioned cloud algorithms that evolved from the advertising commerce model.”

Christopher J. Schneider, a sociology professor at Brandon University in Manitoba, Canada, and the author of “Policing and Social Media: Social Control in an Era of New Media,” said the self-incriminating social media postings fit into a larger trend that has emerged during “mass criminal events.”


He pointed to the 2011 Vancouver riots, which started when the Boston Bruins beat the Vancouver Canucks in the final game of the Stanley Cup. As violence and chaos spilled into the streets, bystanders and participants posted photos and videos to social media, making it “one of the first circumstances where you had a mass criminal event that was happening in real time online.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/01/19/capitol-riot-social-media/

 

[HotKey]

Gentlemen- extraordinary thread. Many thanks for the ongoing contributions. Though so much is beyond my comprehension, I value the opportunity to learn. Because we're never too old to do so. Have made a habit of sitting down my five year old to ingest some of this stuff, in the hopes to spark an interest and thus beget an understanding of a wonder.

Be well. Keep it up! I am hooked.

**

If we take this to the grand scheme of things, does the Universe use it's own schema? If so, schema must be in the very essence of all. The sense that it's dynamic is interesting. Came across this some years back searching for info on using rich snippets in sites.

Schema Theory: Schema theory’s central claim is that our knowledge of the world is organized and categorized, which can influence our cognition and behaviour..

 

[J Sokol]

Hundreds Of Companies Call For U.S. To Slash Carbon Emissions

More than 300 businesses have signed an open letter calling on the Biden administration to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the United States to at least half of 2005 levels by 2030. That would nearly double a previous target set by former President Barack Obama in 2015, who pledged a 25 to 28% reduction by 2025.

The United States is not currently on track to meet either goal.

The signatories include some of largest companies in the United States, including Walmart, Apple, McDonald's and Starbucks. "A bold 2030 target is needed to catalyze a zero-emissions future, spur a robust economic recovery, create millions of well-paying jobs, and allow the U.S. to 'build back better' from the pandemic," the letter said, echoing the president's economic recovery slogan.

https://www.npr.org/2021/04/13/9867...panies-call-for-u-s-to-slash-carbon-emissions

It looks like the corporate world is finally waking up.

 

[Cannuck]

I wanna get me one of these!

More on Jetson One...

 

[J Sokol]

Shell consultant quits, accusing firm of ‘extreme harms’ to environment​

A senior safety consultant has quit working with Shell after 11 years, accusing the fossil fuel producer in a bombshell public video of causing “extreme harms” to the environment.

Caroline Dennett claimed Shell had a “disregard for climate change risks” and urged others in the oil and gas industry to “walk away while there’s still time”.

The executive, who works for the independent agency Clout, ended her working relationship with Shell in an open letter to its executives and 1,400 employees. In an accompanying video, posted on LinkedIn, she said she had quit because of Shell’s “double-talk on climate”.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/may/23/shell-consultant-quits-environment-caroline-dennett

 

[koolishman]

Lab-grown blood given to people in world-first clinical trial​

Blood that has been grown in a laboratory has been put into people in a world-first clinical trial, UK researchers say.

Tiny amounts - equivalent to a couple of spoonfuls - are being tested to see how it performs inside the body.

The first two people have taken part in the trial, which aims to test the blood in at least 10 healthy volunteers. They will get two donations of 5-10mls at least four months apart - one of normal blood and one of lab-grown blood.

The blood has been tagged with a radioactive substance, often used in medical procedures, so scientists can see how long it lasts in the body

 

[Cal2]

The Massive ‘Batteries’ Hidden Beneath Your Feet​

Aquifer thermal energy storage can use groundwater to heat and cool buildings—decarbonizing homes and businesses in the process.

WHEN RAINWATER FALLS, it soaks down into an aquifer, a layer of porous rock or loose materials like sand or gravel. For thousands of years, humans have been digging into these bands of liquid to bring up drinking water. But interest is growing in another clever use for these subterranean pools: aquifer thermal energy storage, or ATES.

A battery holds energy to be used later. Aquifers can be leveraged to do something similar: They can exploit the insulating properties of the Earth to conserve thermal energy and transfer it to and from buildings above ground. The temperature of water in an aquifer tends to stay fairly stable. This provides a way to heat and cool nearby structures with energy stored in water, instead of burning natural gas in furnaces or tapping into fossil-fuel-derived electricity to run air conditioners.

ATES systems consist of two separate wells—one warm, one cold—that run between the surface and the aquifer below. In the winter, you pump groundwater up from a warm well that’s around 60 degrees Fahrenheit, and run it through a heat exchanger. Combined with a heat pump, this process extracts heat from the groundwater to keep the structures’ interiors warm.

Then you pump that now-cooler groundwater down into the second well. This gives you a cold pool of water—around 45 degrees F—to pump out of in the summer to chill buildings. “You heat up the groundwater by taking out the heat from the building and directly inject it into the other well,” says hydrogeologist Martin Bloemendal, who studies ATES at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. “Then in winter, you extract from your warm well.” This process alternates indefinitely as the seasons roll on because the groundwater is reused, not consumed. The system could even take advantage of brackish or contaminated aquifers that can’t be tapped for drinking water.

https://www.wired.com/story/the-massive-batteries-hidden-beneath-your-feet/

 

[Sutruk]

It wouldn't surprise me if, in their study, they find a nearby worm-hole. Wouldn't that be great! We would have a space slipstream right in our very backyard!

That would be like a real sci-fi movie!

There have been some movies about it, now I remember about "Donnie Darko", a quite interesting and amusing one! (Note: Won't be easy to understand!).

Another one, "Interstellar". Also a very interesting one talking about Wormholes and Gravitational Waves. Although the sequence when entering the black hole was just... well, let's say it was just quite unreal hehe.

Wormhole

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

"A wormhole (or Einstein–Rosen bridge or Einstein–Rosen wormhole) is a speculative structure linking disparate points in spacetime, and is based on a special solution of the Einstein field equations.

A wormhole can be visualized as a tunnel with two ends at separate points in spacetime (i.e., different locations, or different points in time, or both).

Wormholes are consistent with the general theory of relativity by Einstein, but whether wormholes actually exist remains to be seen. Many scientists postulate that wormholes are merely projections of a fourth spatial dimension, analogous to how a two-dimensional (2D) being could experience only part of a three-dimensional (3D) object.[1]

A wormhole could connect extremely long distances such as a billion light years or more, short distances such as a few meters, different universes, or different points in time.[2]"

 

[Cannuck]

The topics from this thread are fascinating and novel to many, myself included. As a sidenote, however; one interesting facet of aboriginal knowledge comes from the oral tradition - stories handed down over a millenia. One of the many tribes who have had such a tradition are the Anishinabe.

The Anishinabe have been given ways of communicating with the powerful heavenly forces. The oral teachings and stories which flow out of this communication between mortals and the spiritual world have been passed down from generation to generation since the beginning of time.

Having been privy to some of these sacred teachings in the oral tradition as related to me by the Shaman, I was always interested in Astronomy as a logical proof of the traditional Sky knowledge. Recent efforts are being made to record the stories and legends of the Anishinabe on video. I could relate some of the stories here, but respecting their sacred tradition and the thread rules (reserved for modern scientific studies - many of which are only recent), it may appear to be construed as being hearsay.

http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/edu/Vie...F6F92354FECE08?method=preview&lang=EN&id=5186

 

[CraigD]

The topics from this thread are fascinating and novel to many, myself included. As a sidenote, however; one interesting facet of aboriginal knowledge comes from the oral tradition - stories handed down over a millenia. One of the many tribes who have had such a tradition are the Anishinabe.

The Anishinabe have been given ways of communicating with the powerful heavenly forces. The oral teachings and stories which flow out of this communication between mortals and the spiritual world have been passed down from generation to generation since the beginning of time.

Having been privy to some of these sacred teachings in the oral tradition as related to me by the Shaman, I was always interested in Astronomy as a logical proof of the traditional Sky knowledge. Recent efforts are being made to record the stories and legends of the Anishinabe on video. I could relate some of the stories here, but respecting their sacred tradition and the thread rules (reserved for modern scientific studies - many of which are only recent), it may appear to be construed as being hearsay.

http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/edu/Vie...F6F92354FECE08?method=preview&lang=EN&id=5186

@Cannuck I think you have raised a very valid point. The seeds of critical thinking and science were sown by our ancestors, and our desire to interpret those belief systems in a modern context.
Personally, as a young person I grappled with the contradictions posed by christian theology and modern science, and it sparked in me the passion for learning fundamental truths that I discovered in the proofs of science.

 

[CraigD]

I'm not good with mathematics, but it gives me comfort knowing that brighter people than myself have worked out the equations that govern physics - excepting what occurs beyond the event horizon of black holes, but hey, I can live with that omission

Edit: Perhaps that is the forbidden fruit!

 

[koolishman]

Doctors May Have Found Secretive New Organs in the Center of Your Head

A team of researchers in the Netherlands has discovered what may be a set of previously unidentified organs: a pair of large salivary glands, lurking in the nook where the nasal cavity meets the throat. If the findings are confirmed, this hidden wellspring of spit could mark the first identification of its kind in about three centuries.
Even without a direct therapeutic application, Dr. Yvonne Mowery, a radiation oncologist at Duke University, said she “was quite shocked that we are in 2020 and have a new structure identified in the human body.”

 

[Cannuck]

Science and Technology news and discussion is not politics, or is it?

While scientific researchers are looking for answers, confusion and doubt is fueled and manipulated by the media embroiled in heated political debate. There have been many technological breakthroughs in the recent past that have been quenched by those who have little knowledge of actual science. Many potential solutions to the world's problems are lost in mundane pursuits merely for economic benefit.

“Policy making must be informed by the best available evidence without it being distorted, concealed, or otherwise deliberately miscommunicated incidents of the politicization of science, particularly the overriding of evidence and advice from public health officials and derision of government scientists.”

That said, this thread is not about politics, however; it must be acknowledged that, in order to advance our society, we must take off the blinders of political affiliation and recognize the value of science. It is the most timely question of our day, and that question is: who do we owe the future to? Do we rest our faith in the politics of the day or in the knowledge and understanding gained by those who have spent careers in pursuit of clarity and rigor? Future generations will be the judge, hindsight is 2020.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/202...ect-us-science-so-why-are-some-parts-thriving

 

[Sutruk]

A forest-based yard improved the immune system of daycare children in only a month

During the study, forest undergrowth, lawn turf and planter boxes, in which children planted and tended crops, were added to paved, tiled and gravel-coated yard areas at daycare centres.

Contact with nature repeated five times a week during one month increased microbial diversity in children’s skin. There were also changes in blood counts. Increases in gammaproteobacteria, which strengthen the skin’s immune defence, increased the content of the multifunctional TGF-β1-cytokine in blood and reduced the content of interleukin-17A, which is connected to immune-transmitted diseases.

I totally agree with this:

"A high level of hygiene, an urban lifestyle and an insufficient contact with nature reduce diversity in the organ system’s microbes. Homogeneity in microbes increases the risk of disorders in the immune system, such as atopy, diabetes, the coeliac disease and allergies."

"Dozens comparative studies have previously found that children who live in rural areas and are in contact with nature have a lower probability of catching an illness resulting from disorders in the immune system."

 

[Cannuck]

Far be it for me to convince anyone otherwise, but all pertinent evidence (scientific, naturalistic or otherwise) makes clear one point: we *human beings, are all one tribe. Just as the life giving water on our planet, however pure, polluted and/or divided, it is still H20. While the percentage of water in our bodily fluids may vary, so too does our gene pool, but the common denominator is - that we are all one.

Either through Socratic debate or Scientific proof, as a society we have become conditioned to think (or not to think as the case may be), that our differences make us who we are as individuals. This idea may seem radical, even revolutionary to some who would choose to believe otherwise. As an evolved race (or de-evolved as the case may be), we allow ourselves to accept the notion that we are different somehow.

However, if we remove ourselves from the ego, the inherited ethos and the bias of our programmed schema, we may find wisdom - thereby allowing us to embrace our commonalities - that which binds us together as we venture to understand and make sense of it all. Hidden within us is a common thread, that we, *spiritual beings having a human experience (not the other way around), live within and share a limited bubble of the biosphere that supports life on our planet. IMO, therein lies the only difference.