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]

Project Debater: Artificial Intelligence Capable Of Debating Humans, From IBM.


https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00539-5

A fully autonomous computer system has been developed that can take part in live debates with people. The findings hint at a future in which artificial intelligence can help humans to formulate and make sense of complex arguments.

Project Debater is extraordinarily ambitious, both as an AI system and as a grand challenge for AI as a field. As with almost all AI research that sets its sights so high, a key bottleneck is in acquiring enough data to be able to compute an effective solution to the set challenge4. Project Debater has addressed this obstacle using a dual-pronged approach: it has narrowed its focus to 100 or so debate topics; and it harvests its raw material from data sets that are large, even by the standards of modern language-processing systems.

In a series of outings in 2018 and 2019, Project Debater took on a range of talented, high-profile human debaters (Fig. 1), and its performance was informally evaluated by the audiences. Backed by its argumentation techniques and fuelled by its processed data sets, the system creates a 4-minute speech that opens a debate about a topic from its repertoire, to which a human opponent responds. It then reacts to its opponent’s points by producing a second 4-minute speech. The opponent replies with their own 4-minute rebuttal, and the debate concludes with both participants giving a 2-minute closing statement.

 

[koolishman]

We've reached 75,000 views!

Thank you!

Here are some facts about the number 75,000 from metanumbers.com

• 75,000 (seventy-five thousand) is an even five-digits composite number following 74999 and preceding 75001.

• In scientific notation, it is written as 7.5 × 104.

• The sum of its digits is 12.

• It has a total of 9 prime factors and 48 positive divisors. There are 20,000 positive integers (up to 75000) that are relatively prime to 75000.

• The prime factorization of 75,000 is 23 × 3 × 55. Since it has a total of 9 prime factors, 75,000 is a composite number.

• The number 75,000 can be divided by 48 positive divisors (out of which 36 are even, and 12 are odd). The sum of these divisors (counting 75,000) is 234,360, the average is 488,2.5.

• There are 20,000 positive integers (less than 75,000) that are coprime with 75,000. And there are approximately 7,389 prime numbers less than or equal to 75,000.

• The number 75,000 is divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8.

Find more amazing facts about the number 75,000 at: https://metanumbers.com/75000

Good to see such viewership for science thread!

 

[CraigD]

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter - Eyes on the Moon

We're going back to the moon hopefully in 2024 but compared to the 1960's we need to know a lot more about the moon than we did then if we are to make permanent bases there. So to this end, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter was created to map the moon in greater detail than ever before and in the process, it did what no other orbiter has managed to do and that find and image the Apollo sites after 5 decades of being out of sight to us.

 

[CraigD]

Is The Metric System Actually Better?

Quite a damning video, and no, Von Braun was not a Hunstville native, and no, Imperial was not invented by people who married their cousins

Read more:

Metric system
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_system

History of the Metric system
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_metric_system

Imperial units
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_units

Imperial and US customary measurement system
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_and_US_customary_measurement_systems

International System of Units
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_System_of_Units

 

[koolishman]

Chemists invent shape-shifting nanomaterial

Discovery holds potential for biomedical applications

Chemists have developed a nanomaterial they can trigger to shape-shift -- from flat sheets to tubes and back to sheets again -- in a controllable fashion. The Journal of the American Chemical Society published a description of the nanomaterial, which was developed at Emory University and holds the potential for a range of biomedical applications, from controlled-release drug delivery to tissue engineering.

The research is funded in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation.

The nanomaterial, which in sheet form is 10,000 times thinner than the width of a human hair, is made of synthetic collagen. Naturally occurring collagen is the most abundant protein in humans, making the new material intrinsically biocompatible.

"No one has previously made collagen with the shape-shifting properties of our nanomaterial," says Vincent Conticello, an Emory biomolecular chemist. "We can convert it from sheets to tubes and back simply by varying the pH, or acid concentration, in its environment."

Collagen is the main structural protein in the body's connective tissue, such as cartilage, bones, tendons, ligaments and skin. It is also abundant in blood vessels, the gut, muscles and other parts of the body.

 

[Sutruk]

We've reached 75,000 views!

Thank you!

Here are some facts about the number 75,000 from metanumbers.com

• 75,000 (seventy-five thousand) is an even five-digits composite number following 74999 and preceding 75001.

• In scientific notation, it is written as 7.5 × 104.

• The sum of its digits is 12.

• It has a total of 9 prime factors and 48 positive divisors. There are 20,000 positive integers (up to 75000) that are relatively prime to 75000.

• The prime factorization of 75,000 is 23 × 3 × 55. Since it has a total of 9 prime factors, 75,000 is a composite number.

• The number 75,000 can be divided by 48 positive divisors (out of which 36 are even, and 12 are odd). The sum of these divisors (counting 75,000) is 234,360, the average is 488,2.5.

• There are 20,000 positive integers (less than 75,000) that are coprime with 75,000. And there are approximately 7,389 prime numbers less than or equal to 75,000.

• The number 75,000 is divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8.

Find more amazing facts about the number 75,000 at: https://metanumbers.com/75000

Congrats @CraigD !

Very good to see such an interesting thread having these numbers

Hope this thread gets another 75,000 views very soon! Keep up the good posting guys!

 

[Sutruk]

Summers could last half the year by the end of this century

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/summers-last-half-year-end-century-rcna436

"Summers in the Northern Hemisphere could last nearly six months by the year 2100 if global warming continues unchecked, according to a recent study that examined how climate change is affecting the pattern and duration of Earth's seasons.

The study, published last month in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, found that climate change is making summers hotter and longer, while shrinking the three other seasons. Scientists say the irregularities could have a range of serious implications, affecting human health and agriculture to the environment."

 

[CraigD]

Ultracold Quantum Collisions Have Been Achieved in Space for the First Time

Creating Bose-Einstein condensates—and crashing them together—in microgravity could lead to physics breakthroughs, better spacecraft navigation and more

Even for scientists who have dedicated their lives to understanding gravity, the force’s relentless downward pull is sometimes a drag. Consider, for instance, the researchers who study Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) as precise probes of fundamental physics. BECs emerge when a dilute gas of atoms is cooled close to absolute zero and begins behaving as a single, strange chunk of quantum matter—similar to how wriggling water molecules transform into a block of ice once they are chilled. These odd assemblages magnify otherwise hidden quantum-mechanical effects such as the wavelike nature of matter, making them visible at macroscales. Yet sometimes gravity’s pernicious influence can get in the way.

Earthbound escapes from gravity’s hold involve subjecting BECs to free fall, usually for short spates inside tall drop towers or airplanes flying in parabolic arcs. But the best approach is arguably to leave Earth behind, placing BECs in rockets to experience longer periods of weightless free fall in outer space. Recently, a team of physicists supported by Germany’s space agency reported on doing just that. In Nature Communications this past February, they published the results of a 2017 experiment that manufactured BECs on a millimeter-sized chip in a suborbital sounding rocket almost 300 kilometers above the planet’s surface. The BECs then crashed together in the microgravity conditions, allowing the physicists to study the collisions in exquisite detail. Their mission, MAIUS-1, was the first to successfully collide BECs in space, and it points the way toward new space-based tests of fundamental physics.

Read on...

https://www.scientificamerican.com/...ve-been-achieved-in-space-for-the-first-time/

 

[Sutruk]

Chinese volunteers live in Lunar Palace 1 closed environment for 370 days

https://phys.org/news/2021-03-chinese-volunteers-lunar-palace-environment.html

"Volunteer students at Beihang University have reportedly lived in the Lunar Palace 1 biosphere environment for 370 days. Media outlets have reported that two groups of students took turns living in the biosphere over the course of 370 days, and required minimal supplies from the outside.

Many groups have tried building and living in biospheres over the years. The goal has always been to find out if it is possible to build a self-sustaining ecosystem that could be used on another planet.

The Lunar Palace 1 biosphere is made up of three modules. Two hold facilities for growing food—the third serves as home for the occupants. Air is supplied by the plants, as is the food. Water was recycled during the experiment. The occupants collected it from condensation on surfaces made for that purpose. Also, urine and feces were used as fertilizer. The volunteers also made a type of bread from mealworms that were fed mushrooms, which were grown on plant waste."

China's National Space Administration has set a goal of putting taikonauts on the moon by 2030. A permanent base is planed for some time after that, likely near the moon's ice-rich south pole.

----------------------

Here is the experiment explained:

Establishment of a closed artificial ecosystem to ensure human long-term survival on the moon

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.12.426282v1.full

"Bioregenerative life support system (BLSS) is a critical technology maintaining long-term human survival on the Moon or other extraterrestrial bodies. In the current study, we carried out a 370-day integrated high-closure experiment (“Lunar Palace 365” experiment) on the Earth in an upgraded ground-based BLSS experimental facility called “Lunar Palace 1”.

 

[CraigD]

Crypto art could become a primary source of income for musicians and potentially cut out major labels

• NFTs have already generated millions for artists, breaking digital art records.
• Crypto art could expand the music industry's $US11 ($14) billion market.
• Artists can claim independent revenue by selling NFTs on their own, cutting out major labels.

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/how-crypto-art-muscians-primary-income-nfts-record-labels-2021-3

 

[CraigD]

Melting Glaciers Contribute to Alaska Earthquakes, Cause Land to Rise at 1.5 Inches per Year

In 1958, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake triggered a rockslide into Southeast Alaska’s Lituya Bay, creating a tsunami that ran 1,700 feet up a mountainside before racing out to sea.

Researchers now think the region’s widespread loss of glacier ice helped set the stage for the quake.

In a recently published research article, scientists with the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute found that ice loss near Glacier Bay National Park has influenced the timing and location of earthquakes with a magnitude of 5.0 or greater in the area during the past century.

Scientists have known for decades that melting glaciers have caused earthquakes in otherwise tectonically stable regions, such as Canada’s interior and Scandinavia. In Alaska, this pattern has been harder to detect, as earthquakes are common in the southern part of the state.

Alaska has some of the world’s largest glaciers, which can be thousands of feet thick and cover hundreds of square miles. The ice’s weight causes the land beneath it to sink, and, when a glacier melts, the ground springs back like a sponge.

Read on...

https://scitechdaily.com/melting-gl...es-cause-land-to-rise-at-1-5-inches-per-year/

 

[CraigD]

Echoes From a Comet That Crashed in 1994 Have Revealed New Data on Jupiter

It collided with Jupiter in 1994, but Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 still apparently has things to teach us about the Solar System's largest planet.

A new analysis of the traces of the comet's impact – still zooming around Jupiter's atmosphere – has yielded the first direct measurement of the gas giant's powerful stratospheric winds, in the cloudless middle layer of the atmosphere.

The death of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 was one of the most spectacular events we've ever seen in the Solar System. First, as the icy rock veered close to Jupiter, it was torn apart by the immense gravitational pull of the planet.

Read on...

https://www.sciencealert.com/comet-shoemaker-levy-9-has-revealed-something-new-about-jupiter

Read more:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Shoemaker–Levy_9

 

[CraigD]

How does a Mechanical Scale work? (Spring Scale)

Come learn how a Mechanical Scale works with 3D Animation! We'll also dive into some physics with Hooke's Law.

 

[CraigD]

Starship 2021 Timeline Revealed, First Super Heavy Booster Fully Stacked

Big news this week with SpaceX Starship BN1 (Booster Number 1) Fully Stacked!, we had the SLS Core Stage Hot Fire and Relativity Space had some exciting news. Some delays (obviously) on the flight of SpaceX’s Starship number 11 which is hopefully going to take flight within days now, but still loads to talk about with the Boca Chica sites and upcoming prototypes. We had that record-breaking booster fly again with Starlink and updates on Hubble and the James Web Space Telescope.

 

[CraigD]

Climate change: Jet fuel from waste 'dramatically lowers' emissions

A new approach to making jet fuel from food waste has the potential to massively reduce carbon emissions from flying, scientists say.

Currently, most of the food scraps that are used for energy around the world are converted into methane gas. But researchers in the US have found a way of turning this waste into a type of paraffin that works in jet engines.

The authors of the new study say the fuel cuts greenhouse gas emissions by 165% compared to fossil energy. This figure comes from the reduction in carbon emitted from airplanes plus the emissions that are avoided when food waste is diverted from landfill.

Read on...

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-56408603

 

[koolishman]

Drug found effective for weight loss in patients with obesity and diabetes, international study show

Semaglutide, an injectable medication taken once a week, offers a nonsurgical way to reduce weight and treat obesity. It could help the more than 70 million adults in the United States who struggle with this chronic condition, says Ildiko Lingvay, M.D., M.P.H., M.S.C.S., professor of internal medicine and population and data sciences at UTSW and lead author of the study, published today in The Lancet.

People with diabetes benefit greatly from weight loss, yet they have a much harder time losing weight compared with those without diabetes, Lingvay says. This study is the first to evaluate the weight loss effect of this medication exclusively in patients with Type 2 diabetes.

This multicenter study was conducted at 149 sites in 12 countries across North America, Europe, South America, the Middle East, South Africa, and Asia from June 2018 to June 2020. It is one of the studies conducted as part of the Semaglutide Treatment Effect for People (STEP) with obesity program. "In the four clinical trials completed so far, people treated with this medication lost on average 10 to 17 percent of their body weight, which is a huge step forward compared with all other medications currently available to treat obesity," says Lingvay. "With this drug, results are getting close to what we see with bariatric surgery, which is 20 to 30 percent weight loss."

The STEP 2 study, a randomized, double-blind, double-dummy, placebo-controlled phase 3 clinical trial reported in The Lancet, involved more than 1,200 adults with Type 2 diabetes who were overweight or obese at the time. Over 68 weeks, they injected semaglutide or a placebo once a week. A body mass index (BMI) over 30, or a BMI over 27 along with other comorbidities, was required to participate.

"In this study, more than a quarter of participants lost over 15 percent of their body weight, which is by far the best result we had with any weight loss medicine in patients with diabetes," she says.

 

[CraigD]

We Finally Know How Sperm 'Remember' And Pass on Non-DNA-Coded Traits to Embryos

Studies in mammals have shown that the 'memories' of various environmental effects – such as diet, weight, and stress – are being passed on from dads to offspring, despite these states not being coded for in the DNA sequences carried by sperm. Now, we have a new explanation for how it's possible.

The story has much to do with epigenetics. Molecules that attach themselves to DNA can act like on-off switches that control which sections of DNA get used – but until now we haven't known which of these molecules can carry the settings marked by a father's life experiences, to be incorporated into an embryo via sperm.

"The big breakthrough with this study is that it has identified a non-DNA-based means by which sperm remember a father's environment (diet) and transmit that information to the embryo," said McGill University epigeneticist Sarah Kimmins.

Using mice, epigeneticist Ariane Lismer and colleagues were able to demonstrate that the effects of a folate-deficient diet could be passed on by altering histone molecules in sperm. Simply put, histones are really basic proteins that DNA winds around for tangle-free storage.

Read on...

https://www.sciencealert.com/scient...ass-inheritable-information-to-their-children

 

[CraigD]

From Tesla's $250,000 supercar to Ford's electric F-150, these are the 18 coolest EVs set to hit the streets in the next 3 years

Gas-powered cars have ruled the roads for more than a century - but electric vehicles are about to have their day.

Today, climate-conscious shoppers can choose from dozens of partially or fully electric models. But the number of EVs on the market is set to skyrocket in coming years as startups mature and as traditional automakers double down on the growing space.

General Motors alone plans to have 30 electric models in showrooms by 2025. And several other automakers have issued similar pledges to phase out gas guzzlers in favor of zero-emission cars.

Analysts at McKinsey & Company estimate that carmakers will launch 400 new battery-powered models through 2025. But plenty of interesting new EVs will be on sale much sooner than that.

Check out some of the coolest EVs hitting the market by 2023 - along with their expected arrival dates - below.

Read on...

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/best-new-electric-cars-tesla-ford-gmc-hummer-2023-2021-3

 

[CraigD]

Game Preservation Group Releases Over 700 PS2 Prototypes And Unreleased Demos

Last night video game preservation group, The Hidden Palace, released over 700 PS2 early builds, prototypes, E3, and press release demos in a massive dump the group referred to as “Project Deluge”.

The Hidden Palace hosted a stream on Twitch that lasted over six hours Saturday night. During that stream, they showcased a number of PS2 pre-release builds and demos for various games, including Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex, LEGO Star Wars The Video Game, Crazy Taxi, and Final Fantasy X-2.

Some of these early builds were only seen at tradeshows, like E3, and were specifically built for preview coverage. Other early releases include debug and beta development builds. All of this was found and saved from being sold or thrown away by one person, who worked with The Hidden Palace and Internet Archive to properly catalogue and upload all of these files. All total, this adds up to over 850 GBs of data.

It’s a treasure trove of video game history that The Hidden Palace spent nearly a year digging through, sorting out retail builds, and only saving unreleased prototypes and unreleased revisions. You can read more of the nitty-gritty details about how the team was able to pull this off in a blog post on the group’s website. The short answer: It sounds like a lot of work. A LOT of work.

https://www.kotaku.com.au/2021/03/g...over-700-ps2-prototypes-and-unreleased-demos/

 

[koolishman]

Mission to clear space junk using magnets set for launch

Japanese-made technology aimed at clearing low-Earth orbit of hazardous space debris is about to be put through its paces.

Space junk is a growing problem, with around 9,000 tons of the stuff currently orbiting our planet in millions of pieces. Much of the debris poses a serious threat to functioning satellites that provide important telecommunications services, weather information, and other data for daily life here on terra firma. The human-inhabited International Space Station isn’t free of danger, either, as only last year it was forced to perform a swift maneuver to dodge a piece of junk that could’ve caused a catastrophic accident.

NASA defines space junk as “human-generated objects, such as pieces of spacecraft, tiny flecks of paint from a spacecraft, parts of rockets, satellites that are no longer working, or explosions of objects in orbit flying around in space at high speeds.”

Japan-based Astroscale has developed a system that will use magnets to attract debris before carrying it toward the Earth’s atmosphere where both the satellite and the junk will burn up.

Its first demonstration mission, called ELSA-d, will launch from Kazakhstan on the evening of Sunday, March 21 ET. You can watch it live in the embedded player below.

 

[topdom]

Watch Video From NASA’s Perseverance Rover Landing on Mars

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/22/science/mars-landing-nasa-video.html

"On Monday, NASA released a video taken by the agency’s Perseverance spacecraft as it dropped through the Martian atmosphere on Thursday last week, ending with the successful arrival of the rover on Mars’s surface. It is the first video of its kind sent back to Earth from the planet.

It has taken a while for the full video to make its way to Earth — the same frustration that many people have experienced while waiting to download huge files. There is no high-speed internet connection between Earth and Mars. Instead, the data had to be relayed through orbiting spacecraft passing overhead. The speed at which the data is transmitted would have been considered fast by internet users on Earth a couple of decades ago, but today the upload rate can seem glacial, especially when the file is a high-resolution video."

Someone says things like "currently the speed is.. " . What does "currently" mean, 22 minutes ago? Mars was 11 light-minutes away.

Mars landing can be real (unlike Apollos), but it can also be the case that these are fake movies taken on the Earth, because failure would be unaffordable.

 

[koolishman]

MIT Researchers have made polythene bags recycled into fabric to reduce the plastic pollution

Scientists have made fabrics from polythene in a move they say could reduce plastic pollution and make the fashion industry more sustainable.


Polythene is a ubiquitous plastic, found in everything from plastic bags to food packaging.

The new textiles have potential uses in sportswear, and even high-end fashion, according to US researchers.

The plastic "cloth" is more environmentally-friendly than natural fibres, and can be recycled, they say.

Dr Svetlana Boriskina, from the department of engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, US, said plastic bags that nobody wants can be turned into high-performance fabrics with a low environmental footprint.

 

[CraigD]

Someone says things like "currently the speed is.. " . What does "currently" mean, 22 minutes ago? Mars was 11 light-minutes away.

Mars landing can be real (unlike Apollos), but it can also be the case that these are fake movies taken on the Earth, because failure would be unaffordable.

Did you notice that 22 minutes is exactly double the 11 light-minutes?

That's how long it takes to send a command and receive a response - it's a 22-minute round trip.

No, it's all real.

The Russians and Chinese would have debunked it by now if any of this had been faked.

The Chinese mission Chang'e 2 photographed the American lunar landing sites.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_evidence_for_Apollo_Moon_landings

 

[koolishman]

Mouse sperm generated in rats

Making gametes such as sperm and eggs from pluripotent stem cells, primitive cells that can make all the tissues, greatly contributes to efficient reproduction of livestock animals and future assisted reproductive medicine. Researchers pave the way to achieve this goal using a body of xenogenic animals.

The researchers previously developed a method to grow stem cells into an entire organ in the body, so-called blastocyst complementation. The blastocyst is a structure of early embryos. If stem cells are transplanted into the blastocyst obtained from animals that cannot make a certain organ, the stem cells compensate the missing organ in the developing body, and make the entire organ. "We expected this method is also applicable to the efficient production of gametes," explains an author who led the study, Dr. Toshihiro Kobayashi.

A year ago, the researchers created a genetically modified rat that completely lacks sperm and eggs. They hypothesized that the rat can be used as an excellent host to grow exogenous stem cells into gametes.

The researchers firstly transplanted allogenic rat stem cells into blastocyst obtained from rats that are unable to make gametes, and confirmed all the gametes were derived from the stem cells. The generated gametes deliver the genetic information from the stem cells to the next generation, which enables efficient production of genetically modified rats.

 

[topdom]

Astrophysicists create the most accurate 'flat map' of Earth ever

Here are two pancake maps of Earth.

Earth is a sphere, so how can it be accurately portrayed on a 2D map? Simply flatten Earth into two pancakes, one depicting the Northern Hemisphere and the other the Southern, with the equator running around the edge, a new study finds.

These two "pancakes" represent the most accurate flat map of Earth ever made, the study researchers said. Unlike other flat maps, the new circular map doesn't downsize or supersize the area of certain oceans or landmasses — for instance, many 2D maps depict Greenland as about the same size as Africa, when in fact Africa is 14 times larger, Scientific American reported.

https://www.livescience.com/pancake-earth-flat-map.html

interesting.

Almost purely a math problem. Depends on what is meant by: accurate.

Edit (see below): Can't preserve distances, but can preserve areas, and can be accurate in area sense.

For example , let's say radius of circles is 1 unit. Then a great circle on Earth's surface passing through
poles has length 4, and the equator has length 2pi~6,28, more than 50 percent longer.
But maybe areas are preserved better than lengths.
Can areas be the same or can they be made the same? I should have known. (but not interested in studying it, right now(edit: for a second I suspected it may require grad level math, but no highschool math is more than enough)). It must have a simple answer (edit:yes, very simple indeed).

Edit: Yes possible, and actually it is very easy. A 10 year old can see it is possible to make areas match (but distances can't match because of curvature). I didn't click the link above yet.
So this map can be totally area preserving for each region (and in that sense , the most accurate), assuming the Earth is Spherical (almost it is).