discuss Science & Technology news & discussion

[CraigD]

Post and discuss interesting articles & videos about science and technology.

You don't need to be an expert - just interested in the wonders of modern science, technology, and the history of these fields.

Please keep it rational, and post articles from reputable sources.
Try not to editorialise headlines and keep the copy to just a paragraph with a link to the original source. When quoting excerpts from articles, I think the best method is to italicise the copy, and include a link to the source.

Have some fun with your comments and discussions... just keep the sources legitimate.

Other threads:
The Break Room has a number of other popular threads, so there is no need to post material here that is better suited to these other threads:

- Covid19-Coronavirus updates and news
- Conspiracy Thread Free For All
- The *religious* discussion thread

Please enjoy!

 

[Cannuck]

The salmon you buy in the future may be farmed on land

Farming fish on land may help to reduce the occurrence of sea lice and reduce the chance of fish escape which weakens the natural fish stocks.

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/the-problem-of-sea-lice-in-salmon-farms.html

Fish farming cold water varieties on land, especially in tropical climates immediately raises concerns - seems like an inhospitable environment (even if using chilled tanks) which IMO is certainly unnatural, nor is it environmentally friendly.

 

[J Sokol]

Pizzly' bear hybrids are spreading across the Arctic thanks to climate change

The salmon you buy in the future may be farmed on land

Life is getting stranger and stranger. What will be next?

 

[Cal2]

"Q: Will I be able to see Polar Bears in the street?"

Not too long ago that was thought a funny/fun question asked about Canada. Now....

https://www.canadavisa.com/canada-i...estions-about-canada-lets-have-a-laugh.66004/

 

[koolishman]

NASA to showcase medical inventions on 27th April 2021.

https://technology.nasa.gov/page/nasa-webinar-ames-health-medical

About the Event

For NASA, making sure astronauts are healthy while they’re away from our home planet is a top priority. From experiments on the International Space Station to aeronautics research, NASA programs are developing new technologies that can improve fitness, treat disease, and save lives.

During this webinar, NASA Ames Research Center researchers will be presenting some of the latest inventions to come out of their labs. Please join us to learn how these technologies and capabilities are available to industry and other organizations through NASA’s Technology Transfer Program.


Also,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spinoff_technologies#Health_and_medicine

https://blogs.nasa.gov/ISS_Science_Blog/tag/eli-lilly/

 

[koolishman]

Gardening just twice a week improves wellbeing and relieves stress

Gardening more frequently may be linked to improvements in wellbeing, perceived stress and physical activity, new research suggests.

A new study indicates that people who garden every day have wellbeing scores 6.6 per cent higher and stress levels 4.2 per cent lower than people who do not garden at all.

According to the paper, gardening just two to three times a week maximised the benefits of better wellbeing and lower stress levels.


“This is the first time the ‘dose response’ to gardening has been tested and the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the more frequently you garden – the greater the health benefits,” said Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) wellbeing fellow and lead author Dr Lauriane Chalmin-Pui. “In fact gardening every day has the same positive impact on wellbeing than undertaking regular, vigorous exercise like cycling or running.

“When gardening, our brains are pleasantly distracted by nature around us. This shifts our focus away from ourselves and our stresses, thereby restoring our minds and reducing negative feelings.”

According to the study published in the journal Cities, gardening on a frequent basis – at least two to three times a week – corresponded with greatest perceived health benefits. Improving health, however, was not the prime motivator to garden, but rather the direct pleasure gardening brought to the participants.

 

[koolishman]

Ants drink their own poison as a disinfectant.

In a recent study, researchers investigated how ants control harmful microbes in their food while the beneficial microbes are allowed to be transported from and with the food. More specifically, they looked at the Florida carpenter ant (Camponotus floridanus), and how it uses its own acidic venom as a defensive weapon! They seem to use the acid to disinfect their food, allowing acid-tolerant bacteria to pass through to their guts.

The researchers first looked at seven different formicine ant species, and measured the acidity of their crop and the midgut. The midgut is like the small intestine, where the absorption of nutrients starts. What they found was that the crop always seemed to be quite acidic, with a pH between 2 and 4. The midgut however, seemed to maintain a higher pH, which means it is less acidic.

Although this is not uncommon (in humans the pH in the stomach can reach 2, while the small intestine has a pH of 6), their research demonstrated that ants use a different mechanism compared to humans to keep the pH low: they swallow their own acidic “poison.” This is normally used in defense against predators and is produced by a gland at the end of their bodies. The droplets that come out of this hole called the acidopore, contain 37 chemicals but mostly formic acid (hence the name formicine ants, for their capability to produce this substance). The ants ‘lick’ their acidopore and suck up the poison into their mouths. Yum!

 

[koolishman]

Hebrew University researchers unveil oldest evidence of human activity in African desert cave


Few sites in the world preserve a continuous archaeological record spanning millions of years. Wonderwerk Cave, located in South Africa's Kalahari Desert, is one of those rare sites. Meaning "miracle" in Afrikaans, Wonderwerk Cave has been identified as potentially the earliest cave occupation in the world and the site of some of the earliest indications of fire use and tool making among prehistoric humans.


New research, published in Quaternary Science Reviews, led by a team of geologists and archaeologists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU) and the University of Toronto, confirms the record-breaking date of this spectacular site. "We can now say with confidence that our human ancestors were making simple Oldowan stone tools inside the Wonderwerk Cave 1.8 million years ago. Wonderwerk is unique among ancient Oldowan sites, a tool-type first found 2.6 million years ago in East Africa, precisely because it is a cave and not an open-air occurrence," explained lead author Professor Ron Shaar at HU's Institute of Earth Sciences.

The team were able to successfully establish the shift from Oldowan tools (mainly sharp flakes and chopping tools) to early handaxes over 1 million years ago, and to date the deliberate use of fire by our prehistoric ancestors to 1 million years ago, in a layer deep inside the cave. The latter is a particularly significant because other examples of early fire use come from open-air sites where the possible role of wildfires cannot be excluded. Moreover, Wonderwerk contained a full array of fire remnants: burnt bone, sediment and tools as well as the presence of ash.



https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-04/thuo-wba042621.php

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/103a60qIZCOi9zzRFUUzP376ZG4KHWvP_?usp=sharing

 

[koolishman]

This Interstellar Probe Would Go Deeper Into Space Than Anything Before it

Four years in the making, a pragmatic mission concept for an interstellar probe would go beyond the Voyager Interstellar Mission, in which two spacecraft left Earth in the 1970s and are now the most distant human-made objects. The team behind the project detailed their proposal today at the annual general assembly of the European Geosciences Union.

This probe would pass the solar system’s heliosphere, the area around us where the Sun’s solar winds play a role, filling space with radiation and magnetic fields. (Earth’s magnetosphere protects us from much of this, and the absence of such a sphere on Mars and Venus is clear in their divergent planetary evolution). To an extent, the heliosphere also acts as a shelter protecting our solar system from interstellar radiation.

Show attachment 188931

The farthest human-made object from Earth is Voyager 1, launched in 1977 and now over 152 astronomical units from us, in which one AU is the average distance between the Sun and Earth. In baser terms, Voyager 1 has traveled over 14 billion miles to date, while its sibling, Voyager 2, has gone over 11.7 billion miles. New Horizons, launched in 2006, is now just beyond Pluto. The proposed probe, which would launch in the early 2030s, would make it to the heliosphere boundary in 15 years, compared to the Voyagers’ 35-year schlepp to the same place. The probe would be built to last 50 years, with the ultimate goal of making it 1,000 astronomical units out, dwarfing previous strides by human spacecraft and delving into the interstellar medium—the great void beyond the reaches of our Sun.

 

[koolishman]

Surprise in the Deep Sea: Mysterious Ocean-Floor Trails Show Arctic Sponges on the Move

The aquatic animal known as the sponge is often described as entirely sessile: once they’ve settled in a spot and matured, they aren’t generally thought of as moving around. But, according to a new study in the journal Current Biology on April 26, 2021 — in which researchers describe mysterious trails of light brown sponge spicules (spike-like support elements in sponges) across the Arctic seafloor — that isn’t always so.

“We observed trails of densely interwoven spicules connected directly to the underside or lower flanks of sponge individuals, suggesting these trails are traces of motility of the sponges,” the researchers, led by Teresa Morganti of the Max Planck Institute of Marine Microbiology and Autun Purser of the Alfred Wegener Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, write. “This is the first time abundant sponge trails have been observed in situ and attributed to sponge mobility.”

 

[koolishman]

Electric cars: What will happen to all the dead batteries?

While most EV components are much the same as those of conventional cars, the big difference is the battery. While traditional lead-acid batteries are widely recycled, the same can't be said for the lithium-ion versions used in electric cars.

EV batteries are larger and heavier than those in regular cars and are made up of several hundred individual lithium-ion cells, all of which need dismantling. They contain hazardous materials, and have an inconvenient tendency to explode if disassembled incorrectly.

"Currently, globally, it's very hard to get detailed figures for what percentage of lithium-ion batteries are recycled, but the value everyone quotes is about 5%," says Dr Anderson. "In some parts of the world it's considerably less."

Recent proposals from the European Union would see EV suppliers responsible for making sure that their products aren't simply dumped at the end of their life, and manufacturers are already starting to step up to the mark.

Nissan, for example, is now reusing old batteries from its Leaf cars in the automated guided vehicles that deliver parts to workers in its factories.

Volkswagen is doing the same, but has also recently opened its first recycling plant, in Salzgitter, Germany, and plans to recycle up to 3,600 battery systems per year during the pilot phase.

 

[koolishman]

Icy clouds could have kept early Mars warm enough for rivers and lakes, study finds

One of the great mysteries of modern space science is neatly summed up by the view from NASA's Perseverance, which just landed on Mars: Today it's a desert planet, and yet the rover is sitting right next to an ancient river delta.

The apparent contradiction has puzzled scientists for decades, especially because at the same time that Mars had flowing rivers, it was getting less than a third as much sunshine as we enjoy today on Earth.

But a new study led by University of Chicago planetary scientist Kite, an assistant professor of geophysical sciences and an expert on climates of other worlds, uses a computer model to put forth a promising explanation: Mars could have had a thin layer of icy, high-altitude clouds that caused a greenhouse effect.

Using a 3D model of the entire planet's atmosphere, Kite and his team went to work. The missing piece, they found, was the amount of ice on the ground. If there was ice covering large portions of Mars, that would create surface humidity that favors low-altitude clouds, which aren't thought to warm planets very much (or can even cool them, because clouds reflect sunlight away from the planet.)

Our model suggests that once water moved into the early Martian atmosphere, it would stay there for quite a long time—closer to a year—and that creates the conditions for long-lived high-altitude clouds," said Kite.

 

[koolishman]

Neolithic grave tools indicate sexual division of labor among farmers - The Academic Times

Gender division of labor is nothing new, it turns out.

Unlike previous research, which drew from ethnographic studies to suggest a sexual division of labor in prehistoric societies, this analysis — published April 14 in PLOS ONE — compiled new skeletal and burial evidence to provide a more complete picture of the work men and women performed in the Neolithic period. Its findings indicate that men and women performed distinctly different labor tasks: Men were buried with stone tools that were once used for woodwork, butchery, hunting or interpersonal violence, while women were buried with stone tools designed for working animal hides or producing leather.

The artifacts were distributed in an observable geographic pattern from modern-day Slovakia to eastern France, hinting that the westward spread of agriculture played a formative role in establishing the sexual division of labor. However, many questions remain as to how different tasks became culturally associated with women, men and perhaps other genders at this time.

 

[Sutruk]

Stars made of antimatter could lurk in the Milky Way

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/antimatter-stars-antistars-milky-way-galaxy-space-astronomy

"Fourteen pinpricks of light on a gamma-ray map of the sky could fit the bill for antistars, stars made of antimatter, a new study suggests.

These antistar candidates seem to give off the kind of gamma rays that are produced when antimatter — matter’s oppositely charged counterpart — meets normal matter and annihilates. This could happen on the surfaces of antistars as their gravity draws in normal matter from interstellar space, researchers report online April 20 in Physical Review D.

“If, by any chance, one can prove the existence of the antistars … that would be a major blow for the standard cosmological model,” says Pierre Salati, a theoretical astrophysicist at the Annecy-le-Vieux Laboratory of Theoretical Physics in France not involved in the work. It “would really imply a significant change in our understanding of what happened in the early universe.”

 

[Sutruk]

The thickness of lead’s neutron ‘skin’ has been precisely measured

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/lead-thick-neutron-skin-atom-nucleus-new-measure-physics

"Some atomic nuclei are thin-skinned — they’re surrounded by a slim shell of neutrons.

Physicists now know how thick that neutron skin is for one particular type of nucleus. The skin of lead-208 — a variety of lead with 126 neutrons in addition to its 82 protons — is about 0.28 trillionths of a millimeter thick, researchers report online April 27 in Physical Review Letters.

Lead-208’s nucleus is approximately spherical, a ball of protons embedded within a slightly bigger ball of neutrons. Measuring the difference between the sizes of the spheres reveals the thickness of lead’s sleek neutron skin."

 

[Sutruk]

CRISPR discovery paves the way for novel COVID-19 testing method

https://phys.org/news/2021-04-crispr-discovery-paves-covid-method.html

"Most conventional molecular diagnostics usually detect only a single disease-related biomarker. Great examples are the PCR tests currently used to diagnose COVID-19 by detecting a specific sequence from SARS-CoV-2. Such so-called singleplex methods provide reliable results because they are calibrated to a single biomarker. However, determining whether a patient is infected with a new SARS-CoV-2 variant or a completely different pathogen requires probing for many different biomarkers at one time.

Scientists from the Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research (HIRI) and the Julius Maximilians University (JMU) in Würzburg have now paved the way for a completely new diagnostic platform with LEOPARD. It is a CRISPR-based method that is highly multiplexable, with the potential to detect a variety of disease-related biomarkers in just one test.

How LEOPARD works

LEOPARD, which stands for "Leveraging Engineered tracrRNAs and On-target DNAs for PArallel RNA Detection," is based on the finding that DNA cutting by Cas9 could be linked to the presence of a specific ribonucleic acid (RNA). This link allows LEOPARD to detect many RNAs at once, opening opportunities for the simultaneous detection of RNAs from viruses and other pathogens in a patient sample."

 

[J Sokol]

Stunning DDT dump site off L.A. coast much bigger than scientists expected

When the research vessel Sally Ride set sail for Santa Catalina Island to map an underwater graveyard of DDT waste barrels, its crew had high hopes of documenting for the first time just how many corroded containers littered the seafloor off the coast of Los Angeles.

But as the scientists on deck began interpreting sonar images gathered by two deep-sea robots, they were quickly overwhelmed. It was like trying to count stars in the Milky Way.

The dumpsite, it turned out, was much, much bigger than expected. After spending two weeks surveying a swath of seafloor larger than the city of San Francisco, the scientists could find no end to the dumping ground. They could’ve kept going in any direction, they said, and uncovered even more.

https://www.latimes.com/environment...rels-off-la-coast-shock-california-scientists

 

[J Sokol]

Drought-hit California moves to halt Nestlé from taking millions of gallons of water

California water officials have moved to stop Nestlé from siphoning millions of gallons of water out of California’s San Bernardino forest, which it bottles and sells as Arrowhead brand water, as drought conditions worsen across the state.

The draft cease-and-desist order, which still requires approval from the California Water Resources Control Board, is the latest development in a protracted battle between the bottled water company and local environmentalists, who for years have accused Nestlé of draining water supplies at the expense of local communities and ecosystems.

Nestlé has maintained that its rights to California spring water dates back to 1865. But a 2017 investigation found that Nestlé was taking far more than its share. Last year the company drew out about 58m gallons, far surpassing the 2.3m gallons per year it could validly claim.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...ia-nestle-water-san-bernardino-forest-drought

 

[Cal2]

Drought-hit California moves to halt Nestlé from taking millions of gallons of water

California water officials have moved to stop Nestlé from siphoning millions of gallons of water out of California’s San Bernardino forest, which it bottles and sells as Arrowhead brand water, as drought conditions worsen across the state.

The draft cease-and-desist order, which still requires approval from the California Water Resources Control Board, is the latest development in a protracted battle between the bottled water company and local environmentalists, who for years have accused Nestlé of draining water supplies at the expense of local communities and ecosystems.

Nestlé has maintained that its rights to California spring water dates back to 1865. But a 2017 investigation found that Nestlé was taking far more than its share. Last year the company drew out about 58m gallons, far surpassing the 2.3m gallons per year it could validly claim.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...ia-nestle-water-san-bernardino-forest-drought

Nestle's been at that kind of water thing, and more, in other places for some time:

https://www.google.com/search?q=nes...YAQCgAQGqAQdnd3Mtd2l6yAEIwAEB&sclient=gws-wiz

 

[Cannuck]

Nestle's been at that kind of water thing, and more, in other places for some time:

Nestle sells Canadian water business

On June 11, Nestle announced it was reshaping its global water business. “The company will sharpen its focus on its iconic international brands, its leading premium mineral water brands, and invest in differentiated healthy hydration, such as functional water products,” the company said at the time.

IMO it has more to do with the government ban on single-use plastics.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/go...se-plastics-as-early-as-2021-source-1.5168386

 

[Cal2]

Nestle sells Canadian water business

On June 11, Nestle announced it was reshaping its global water business. “The company will sharpen its focus on its iconic international brands, its leading premium mineral water brands, and invest in differentiated healthy hydration, such as functional water products,” the company said at the time.

IMO it has more to do with the government ban on single-use plastics.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/go...se-plastics-as-early-as-2021-source-1.5168386

Looks like they sold their N. American water business:

Nestlé's North American bottled water business renamed BlueTriton Brands after $4.3B sale

https://www.fooddive.com/news/nestle-sells-north-american-bottled-water-business-for-43b/595202/

MAYBE it's for the better:

Why Nestle is one of the most hated companies in the world

"But when Nestle isn’t trying to privatize water or use it without regards to the environment, it’s simply bottling… tap water. A Chicago-based business has sued the company (again), claiming that the five gallon jugs of Ice Mountain Water they bought were nothing else than tap water. It may come as a shock to you, but nearly half of the bottled water in PET plastic bottles is actually from a tap – though Nestle never advertised this"

https://www.zmescience.com/science/...iness has,though Nestle never advertised this.

 

[J Sokol]

Nestlé's North American bottled water business renamed BlueTriton Brands after $4.3B sale

"The company is not giving up on water altogether and will continue to invest in premium waters, natural mineral waters and functional waters for consumers who are willing to pay up to purchase them. The focus also gives Nestlé a way to differentiate itself in waters while still remaining a prominent player in the category."

Love the term "functional waters" ... I wonder what it means.

 

[koolishman]

Not so special: Our brains develop at the speed of other primates'


Neuroscientists have long debated whether our prefrontal cortex takes longer to develop than in other primates — and whether this extended period gives us exceptional cognitive abilities — but new research suggests that human brain circuitry matures much like that of chimpanzees and macaques.

"It's true that our development and especially our life span is extended compared with other primate species," Christine Charvet, an assistant professor and a neurobiologist at Delaware State University and the author of the study, told The Academic Times. "But the question is, what is unusually extended after we control for the life span?"

The findings, presented Tuesday at a conference hosted by Experimental Biology, are explored in a Feb. 10 study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B and in a forthcoming research paper authored by Charvet and several colleagues. The investigators found no evidence that the prefrontal cortex maturation period is longer in humans than in chimpanzees or macaques. "We often talk about how the prefrontal cortex development should be extended relative to other primates," Charvet said. "We're just not finding it."

Separate studies have recently found that early humans had great-ape-like brains and that other primates have logical-reasoning skills that exceed those of human toddlers. Charvet believes her research, which has revealed a number of unexpected parallels in the frontal cortex neural circuitry of primates and humans, is a starting point for scientists to better understand what makes the human brain distinct from the brains of similar mammals. Her yet-to-be-published study advances a new approach for visualizing the brain connectome in humans and nonhuman primates, allowing for unprecedented comparisons between species

 

[Cal2]

"The company is not giving up on water altogether and will continue to invest in premium waters, natural mineral waters and functional waters for consumers who are willing to pay up to purchase them. The focus also gives Nestlé a way to differentiate itself in waters while still remaining a prominent player in the category."

Love the term "functional waters" ... I wonder what it means.

"Functional water is simply good old H2O with added special ingredients (like herbs, vitamins and antioxidants) that claim to bring health benefits. Think: herb-infused drinks that promise to boost energy or alkaline water that supposedly neutralizes acid in the body (more on that one below)."

https://www.google.com/search?q=fun...hUKEwis8s6p55_wAhV5JTQIHQ6oCREQ4dUDCA4&uact=5

 

[koolishman]

Business-as-usual will lead to super and ultra-extreme heatwaves in the Middle East and North Africa

Global climate projections suggest a significant intensification of summer heat extremes in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). To assess regional impacts, and underpin mitigation and adaptation measures, robust information is required from climate downscaling studies, which has been lacking for the region. Here, we project future hot spells by using the Heat Wave Magnitude Index and a comprehensive ensemble of regional climate projections for MENA. Our results, for a business-as-usual pathway, indicate that in the second half of this century unprecedented super- and ultra-extreme heatwave conditions will emerge. These events involve excessively high temperatures (up to 56 °C and higher) and will be of extended duration (several weeks), being potentially life-threatening for humans. By the end of the century, about half of the MENA population (approximately 600 million) could be exposed to annually recurring super- and ultra-extreme heatwaves. It is expected that the vast majority of the exposed population (>90%) will live in urban centers, who would need to cope with these societally disruptive weather conditions.

 

[Cannuck]

...alkaline water that supposedly neutralizes acid in the body

“The esophageal lining is built to withstand acid damage, but it’s not at all built to be exposed to things that are alkaline,” he says. “So for some people, alkaline beverages could cause irritation.”

What Is Alkaline Water, and Can It Really Help With Heartburn?

https://www.health.com/condition/heartburn/alkaline-water

While alkaline diet can have health benefits, even shown to help prevent cancer, it is basically just eating an unrefined, wholesome diet.

What Is the Alkaline Diet?

https://www.verywellfit.com/alkaline-acid-diet-89879