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!

 

[CraigD]

Neanderthals Used a Really Familiar Tool For Their Dental Hygiene, Study Shows

The plain wooden toothpick is among the simplest of all manufactured objects and is considered the oldest instrument for dental cleaning, one that spans more than just human species.

Several higher primates use similar items to rub or pick their teeth, and growing archaeological evidence from throughout Europe suggests Neanderthals also had a habit of scraping food out of their mouths. We know that because it's left quite the impression on their molars.

A newly analyzed tooth, discovered in a Polish cave in 2010, has now been found with a spindle-like groove on the side, indicating the in-and-out motion of a toothpick.

The dental measurements of the upper premolar and radiocarbon dating of the area all suggest it once belonged to a male Neanderthal in his 30s who was cleaning his teeth in this manner as far back as 46,000 years ago.

Read on...

https://www.sciencealert.com/evidence-shows-neanderthals-took-care-of-their-teeth-with-toothpicks

 

[CraigD]

Wait. "beauty quarks".. there's a new quark?

TDIL; Beauty Quark is an old term for the B or Bottom Quark, but little used because it doesn't fit in with the modern naming convention of top and bottom quarks, and up and down quarks.

I guess the name fitted in with charmed and strange quarks.

I'm not sure why scientists would still use outdated terminology.

 

[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]

It’s not too late for Australia to forestall a dystopian future that alternates between Mad Max and Waterworld

By Michael Mann.

Catastrophic fires and devastating floods are part of Australia’s harsh new climate reality. The country must do its part to lower carbon emissions.

A year ago I lived through the Black Summer. I had arrived in Sydney in mid-December 2019 to collaborate with Australian researchers studying the impacts of climate change on extreme weather events. Instead of studying those events, however, I ended up experiencing them.

Even in the confines of my apartment in Coogee, looking out over the Pacific, I could smell the smoke from the massive bushfires blazing across New South Wales. As I flew to Canberra to participate in a special “bushfires” episode of the ABC show Q+A, I witnessed mountains ablaze with fire. One man I met during my stay lost most of his 180-year-old family farm in the fires that ravaged south-east New South Wales near Milton.

My experiences indelibly coloured the book I was writing on the climate crisis at the time called The New Climate War.

I returned home to the US last March, my sabbatical stay cut short by coronavirus. But just a year later, with memories of the hellish inferno that was the Black Summer still fresh in my mind, I must painfully watch from afar now as my Aussie mates endure further climate-wrought devastation. This time it’s not fires. It’s floods.

Read on...

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...-part-of-australias-harsh-new-climate-reality

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

Anyway, the rain stopped in Sydney NSW today and the sun came out.

The floods will begin to subside in a few days - although they are still rising in the Sydney basin due to run-off - and everything will grow like crazy until next summer, when it will all catch on fire again.

The circle of life/disaster continues...


Oh, and we are now being inundated with Funnel-web spiders. I live in the area where they are most prevalent, and saw a couple of these nasty buggers today.


Funnel-web spider plague due to floods

Wild wet weather has prompted an urgent warning about deadly yard-dwelling funnel-web spiders as they look to escape to dry ground.

https://www.news.com.au/technology/...s/news-story/63ad92b644bcb8329b31a2aee8dfa815

Sweet dreams

 

[CraigD]

Vast Fragments of an Alien World Could Be Buried Deep Within Earth Itself

They are among the largest and strangest of all structures on Earth: huge, mysterious blobs of dense rock lurking deep within the lowermost parts of our planet's mantle.

There are two of these gigantic masses – called the large low-shear-velocity provinces (LLSVPs) – with one buried under Africa, the other below the Pacific Ocean.

These anomalies are so massive, they in turn breed their own disturbances, such as the large phenomenon currently evolving within and weakening Earth's magnetic field, known as the South Atlantic Anomaly.

As for how and why the LLSVPs came to exist like this within the mantle, scientists have lots of ideas, but little in the way of hard proof.

What is known, however, is that these giant blobs have been around for a very long time, with many thinking they could have been a part of Earth since before the giant impact that birthed the Moon – ancient traces of the collision between Earth and the hypothetical planet Theia.

Read on...

https://www.sciencealert.com/vast-m...-world-may-be-buried-within-earth-study-finds

 

[CraigD]

Large extinct Australian kangaroo spent half its life in trees

In 2002, Natalie Warburton at Murdoch University in Perth and Gavin Prideaux at Flinders University in Adelaide, both in Australia, excavated the remains of two kangaroos, a male and female, at the Thylacoleo caves of Nullarbor Plain, in south-western Australia.

The kangaroos belong to a species that went extinct about 40,000 years ago – one of many large-bodied animals that were wiped out at the time.

The researchers suspect the kangaroo was semi-arboreal, meaning it spent half of its time on land and half in the trees. A handful of small-bodied kangaroo species alive today are also adapted for life in trees, but individuals of the ancient species may have weighed at least 50 kilograms, much heavier than modern tree-dwelling kangaroos.

“When climbing, [the extinct kangaroo] moved something like a cross between a koala and a very large-bodied primate, not swinging under branches though, but with a big heavy tail and head like a kangaroo,” says Warburton.

“These specimens come from an area that is now bare of trees, so it tells us that the habitat and environment were once really different to what they are now,” she says.

Read more:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2272165-large-extinct-australian-kangaroo-spent-half-its-life-in-trees/

 

[koolishman]

Stanford study finds walking improves creativity

Stanford researchers found that walking boosts creative inspiration. They examined creativity levels of people while they walked versus while they sat. A person's creative output increased by an average of 60 percent when walking.

Steve Jobs, the late co-founder of Apple, was known for his walking meetings. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has also been seen holding meetings on foot. And perhaps you’ve paced back and forth on occasion to drum up ideas.

A new study by Stanford researchers provides an explanation for this.

Creative thinking improves while a person is walking and shortly thereafter, according to a study co-authored by Marily Oppezzo, a Stanford doctoral graduate in educational psychology, and Daniel Schwartz, a professor at Stanford Graduate School of Education.

The study found that walking indoors or outdoors similarly boosted creative inspiration. The act of walking itself, and not the environment, was the main factor. Across the board, creativity levels were consistently and significantly higher for those walking compared to those sitting.

Walking vs. sitting
Other research has focused on how aerobic exercise generally protects long-term cognitive function, but until now, there did not appear to be a study that specifically examined the effect of non-aerobic walking on the simultaneous creative generation of new ideas and then compared it against sitting, Oppezzo said.

A person walking indoors – on a treadmill in a room facing a blank wall – or walking outdoors in the fresh air produced twice as many creative responses compared to a person sitting down, one of the experiments found.

“I thought walking outside would blow everything out of the water, but walking on a treadmill in a small, boring room still had strong results, which surprised me,” Oppezzo said.

The study also found that creative juices continued to flow even when a person sat back down shortly after a walk.

 

[CraigD]

Stanford study finds walking improves creativity

Stanford researchers found that walking boosts creative inspiration. They examined creativity levels of people while they walked versus while they sat. A person's creative output increased by an average of 60 percent when walking.

Steve Jobs, the late co-founder of Apple, was known for his walking meetings. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has also been seen holding meetings on foot. And perhaps you’ve paced back and forth on occasion to drum up ideas.

A new study by Stanford researchers provides an explanation for this.

Creative thinking improves while a person is walking and shortly thereafter, according to a study co-authored by Marily Oppezzo, a Stanford doctoral graduate in educational psychology, and Daniel Schwartz, a professor at Stanford Graduate School of Education.

The study found that walking indoors or outdoors similarly boosted creative inspiration. The act of walking itself, and not the environment, was the main factor. Across the board, creativity levels were consistently and significantly higher for those walking compared to those sitting.

Walking vs. sitting
Other research has focused on how aerobic exercise generally protects long-term cognitive function, but until now, there did not appear to be a study that specifically examined the effect of non-aerobic walking on the simultaneous creative generation of new ideas and then compared it against sitting, Oppezzo said.

A person walking indoors – on a treadmill in a room facing a blank wall – or walking outdoors in the fresh air produced twice as many creative responses compared to a person sitting down, one of the experiments found.

“I thought walking outside would blow everything out of the water, but walking on a treadmill in a small, boring room still had strong results, which surprised me,” Oppezzo said.

The study also found that creative juices continued to flow even when a person sat back down shortly after a walk.

Surprising as I would have thought that seeing the surrounding environment created the mental stimulation.

 

[CraigD]

Large extinct Australian kangaroo spent half its life in trees

In 2002, Natalie Warburton at Murdoch University in Perth and Gavin Prideaux at Flinders University in Adelaide, both in Australia, excavated the remains of two kangaroos, a male and female, at the Thylacoleo caves of Nullarbor Plain, in south-western Australia.

The kangaroos belong to a species that went extinct about 40,000 years ago – one of many large-bodied animals that were wiped out at the time.

The researchers suspect the kangaroo was semi-arboreal, meaning it spent half of its time on land and half in the trees. A handful of small-bodied kangaroo species alive today are also adapted for life in trees, but individuals of the ancient species may have weighed at least 50 kilograms, much heavier than modern tree-dwelling kangaroos.

“When climbing, [the extinct kangaroo] moved something like a cross between a koala and a very large-bodied primate, not swinging under branches though, but with a big heavy tail and head like a kangaroo,” says Warburton.

“These specimens come from an area that is now bare of trees, so it tells us that the habitat and environment were once really different to what they are now,” she says.

Read more:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2272165-large-extinct-australian-kangaroo-spent-half-its-life-in-trees/

More info on this story:

https://phys.org/news/2021-03-extinct-climbing-kangaroo-species.html

I know the Nullarbor Plain.

It's surprising to learn that there was bush there 40,000 years ago.

It's an almost treeless landscape... although this Nullarbor Shoe Tree is thriving.

 

[Cannuck]

What is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch covers an estimated surface area of 1.6 million square kilometers, an area twice the size of Texas or three times the size of France. While higher concentrations of litter items can be found in this area, much of the debris is actually small pieces, approximately 1.8 trillion pieces of floating plastic (250 pieces for every human being on Earth).

Once these plastics enter, they are unlikely to leave the area until they degrade into smaller microplastics under the effects of sun, waves and marine life which now outnumber the stars in the Milky Way Galaxy by at least 500 times! As more and more plastics are discarded into the environment, microplastic concentration in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch will likely continue to increase exponentially.

https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/garbagepatch.html

 

[CraigD]

A project by Russian scientists will help create capsules for targeted drug delivery

Scientists from MIPT and ITMO University and their colleagues have studied the formation and growth of crystals from simple organic molecules into large associations. These experiments will help create capsules for targeted drug delivery to specific tissues in the human body. The scientific paper was published in the journal Crystal Growth & Design.

Melamine cyanurate consists of colorless melamine crystals and cyanuric acid, whose molecules associate in a similar way to DNA formation. Studies associated with it could be useful in developing techniques for introducing drugs into crystals with a similar structure. This will enable scientists to conduct experiments on targeted drug delivery, a technology which in the future will allow drugs to go directly to targets, i.e., specific organ tissues, rather than be distributed throughout the body.

However, there are still many questions about the mechanism of molecular organization at different stages of crystal growth.

Read on...

https://phys.org/news/2021-03-russian-scientists-capsules-drug-delivery.html

 

[Cannuck]

 

[Cannuck]

 

[koolishman]

Scientist Says Plastic Pollution is Shrinking Penises, Will Make Most Men Infertile by 2045

An environmental scientist has warned that plastic pollution is shrinking penises and making men infertile, meaning most of them won’t be able to produce sperm by 2045.

In a new book called Count Down, Dr Shanna Swan writes that humanity is facing an “existential crisis” due to phthalates, a chemical used in the plastic manufacturing process which disrupts the endocrine system.

A growing number of babies are being born with small penises as a result of phthalate syndrome, something that has been observed in rats when they are exposed to the chemical in tests.

Human babies are being exposed to the chemical in the womb, causing a shorter anogenital distance which correlates to penis size.

“Phathalates mimic the hormone oestrogen and thus disrupt the natural production of hormones in the human body, which researchers have linked to interference in sexual development in infants and behaviours in adults,” reports Sky News.

The chemical, which is used to make plastics more flexible, is being transmitted to humans via toys, food and other items.

Swan cautions that “our modern world is threatening sperm counts, altering male and female reproductive development, and imperilling the future of the human race.”

 

[CraigD]

Scientist Says Plastic Pollution is Shrinking Penises, Will Make Most Men Infertile by 2045

An environmental scientist has warned that plastic pollution is shrinking penises and making men infertile, meaning most of them won’t be able to produce sperm by 2045.

In a new book called Count Down, Dr Shanna Swan writes that humanity is facing an “existential crisis” due to phthalates, a chemical used in the plastic manufacturing process which disrupts the endocrine system.

A growing number of babies are being born with small penises as a result of phthalate syndrome, something that has been observed in rats when they are exposed to the chemical in tests.

Human babies are being exposed to the chemical in the womb, causing a shorter anogenital distance which correlates to penis size.

“Phathalates mimic the hormone oestrogen and thus disrupt the natural production of hormones in the human body, which researchers have linked to interference in sexual development in infants and behaviours in adults,” reports Sky News.

The chemical, which is used to make plastics more flexible, is being transmitted to humans via toys, food and other items.

Swan cautions that “our modern world is threatening sperm counts, altering male and female reproductive development, and imperilling the future of the human race.”

Is this for real?

Sounds like the plot from The Children of Men.

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

 

[CraigD]

Event Horizon Telescope Images Magnetic Fields at the Edge of M87’s Supermassive Black Hole

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration, which produced the first-ever image of a black hole, has today revealed a new view of the massive object at the center of the Messier 87 (M87) galaxy: how it looks in polarized light. This is the first time astronomers have been able to measure polarization, a signature of magnetic fields, this close to the edge of a black hole. The observations are key to explaining how the M87 galaxy, located 55 million light-years away, is able to launch energetic jets from its core.

“We are now seeing the next crucial piece of evidence to understand how magnetic fields behave around black holes, and how activity in this very compact region of space can drive powerful jets that extend far beyond the galaxy,” says Monika Mościbrodzka, Coordinator of the EHT Polarimetry Working Group and Assistant Professor at Radboud University in the Netherlands.

Read on...

https://scitechdaily.com/event-hori...-at-the-edge-of-m87s-supermassive-black-hole/

 

[CraigD]

I just turned on Netflix and this came up as todays recommended video!

 

[Cannuck]

I just turned on Netflix and this came up as todays recommended video!

The genie has been let out of the bottle...

Seafloor deforestation from bottom trolling wipes out 3.9 billion acres every year!

That's equivalent to the land area of Greenland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, UK, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Turkey, Iran, Thailand and Australia combined!

 

[FolioTeam]

Scientist Says Plastic Pollution is Shrinking Penises, Will Make Most Men Infertile by 2045

An environmental scientist has warned that plastic pollution is shrinking penises and making men infertile, meaning most of them won’t be able to produce sperm by 2045.

In a new book called Count Down, Dr Shanna Swan writes that humanity is facing an “existential crisis” due to phthalates, a chemical used in the plastic manufacturing process which disrupts the endocrine system.

A growing number of babies are being born with small penises as a result of phthalate syndrome, something that has been observed in rats when they are exposed to the chemical in tests.

Human babies are being exposed to the chemical in the womb, causing a shorter anogenital distance which correlates to penis size.

“Phathalates mimic the hormone oestrogen and thus disrupt the natural production of hormones in the human body, which researchers have linked to interference in sexual development in infants and behaviours in adults,” reports Sky News.

The chemical, which is used to make plastics more flexible, is being transmitted to humans via toys, food and other items.

Swan cautions that “our modern world is threatening sperm counts, altering male and female reproductive development, and imperilling the future of the human race.”

Lol. For real?

 

[koolishman]

Lol. For real?

Yup.

Reality is looking like science fiction.

Microplastics revealed in the placentas of unborn babies

 

[Cannuck]

OUR FUTURE PLANET: GLOBAL GREENHOUSE GAS REMOVAL
Hear leading scientists and environmental journalists explore the many aspects of carbon capture, including reforestation, and rewilding as well as a range of industrial methods.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1365306545416900609

FREE ONLINE EVENT
DATE: Wednesday 31 March 2021

• TIME: 19.30–20.45
  
• PRICE: Free, booking essential

https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/see-and-do/climate-talks/greenhouse-gas-removal

 

[Cannuck]

How Habitat Destruction Enables the Spread of Diseases Like COVID-19

When fisheries are lost it drives people further inland to hunt wild animals. This gave rise to the Ebola virus in West Africa. As more habitat destruction occurs, disease transfer from animals to humans increases. In recent years, bats have been related to several viral outbreaks, from SARS to COVID-19.

People are displaced into natural habitats because they don’t have good alternatives. They’re coming into more direct contact with a wider range of wildlife and creating the conditions under which we are likely to see more of these diseases emerge. – Dr. Erin Sills

https://cnr.ncsu.edu/news/2020/04/habitat-destruction-covid19/

 

[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.

Headline Gold!

Cargo ship draws giant penis in Red Sea then becomes wedged in Suez Canal

A container ship caught in the Suez Canal took an unusual route through the Red Sea before it became stuck on a major shipping route.

https://www.news.com.au/finance/eco...l/news-story/19d9322de92f703442b3aecccf8a7ffd

 

[CraigD]

The Dish runs back to the moon: Parkes telescope to support commercial lunar landings

Australian observatory that shared Apollo 11 images reaches deal with US company Intuitive Machines

The Parkes radio telescope in regional New South Wales, which famously shared Apollo 11’s landing images to more than 600 million people in 1969, will provide support to new commercial lunar missions this year aimed at ultimately creating a “sustainable presence” for humans on the moon.

“The Dish”, as it has become known in Australia, will provide ground station support to the Houston-based Intuitive Machines group for the “multiple lunar missions” it is planning with Nasa over the next five years.

Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, which owns and operates the 64-metre telescope, announced it had struck the deal with Intuitive Machines on Thursday, making the Parkes facility – which began operating in 1961 – the largest and most sensitive receiving ground station for the upcoming missions.
Given its size, the telescope can receive advanced engineering data considered valuable for further astronomical research.

Read on...

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...elescope-to-support-commercial-lunar-landings

 

[CraigD]

Scientists are hoping to redefine the second – here’s why

...using a new way of linking the clocks with ultra-fast lasers, researchers have shown that different kinds of optical atomic clocks can be placed a few kilometres apart and still agree within 1 part in 10¹⁸. This is just as good as previous measurements with pairs of identical clocks a few hundred metres apart, but about a hundred times more precise than achieved before with different clocks or large distances.

The authors of the new study compared multiple clocks based on different types of atoms – ytterbium, aluminium and strontium in their case. The strontium clock was situated in the University of Colorado and the other two were in the US National Institute of Standards and Technology, down the road.

The study connected the clocks with a laser beam through the air over 1.5km from building to building, and this link was shown to be just as good as an optical fibre under the road, in spite of air turbulence.

Read the complete article:

https://theconversation.com/scientists-are-hoping-to-redefine-the-second-heres-why-157645