[QUOTE=rogue;511147][URL="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/southern-california-skies-fill-butterflies-thanks-painted-lady-migration-n982551"]Southern California skies fill with butterflies thanks to painted lady migration[/URL][/QUOTE]
Once upon a time, long long ago, when I was in grade school...

A house on my route to school was awaiting a redeveloper's wrecking ball, and what had once been a pair of small rock gardens where the house sidewalk met the public sidewalk, had become overgrown with Canada thistle ([i]Cirsium arvense[/i]). It was early fall; I remember the thistles had already bloomed, and some of them had gone to seed. I happened to notice a caterpillar on one of the leaves. I became curious about how it dealt with the spines. It was fascinating. It would chew along the leaf margin until a spine blocked its progress, partially undermining it. Then, it would move past the spine and chew toward it from the other side until the spine, completely undermined, would fall off!

I was so impressed, I decided to raise the caterpillar at home to find out what kind of butterfly or moth it was. I kept it supplied with fresh thistle foliage until, one morning, I looked in the jar and failed to locate the caterpillar. I decided it must have gone to pupate. And sure enough, not many days later, there was a butterfly fluttering against the window near the jar. The adult allowed for a positive ID as a Painted Lady ([i]Vanessa cardui[/i]) from a field guide. If memory serves, I captured it and released it outside.

There was a huge migration in the fall of 2017, [url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41528521]picked up on Denver weather radar[/url].

[URL="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/19/science/karen-uhlenbeck-abel-prize.html"]https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/19/science/karen-uhlenbeck-abel-prize.html[/URL]

[URL="https://futurism.com/drone-explore-martian-caves/"]NASA’s Working on a Drone to Hunt For Life in Martian Caves[/URL]

[URL="https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/dna-from-enslaved-people"]How DNA From a 200-Year-Old Pipe Connects Maryland and Sierra Leone[/URL]

[URL="http://nautil.us/issue/70/variables/how-designers-engineer-luck-into-video-games-rp"]How Designers Engineer Luck Into Video Games[/URL]

[URL="https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/trolley-car-inside-a-house"]Found: A Historic Trolley Hidden Inside a House[/URL]

[URL="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-internets-most-devoted-volunteers-waze-map-editors-11553096956"]‘It Takes Over Your Life’: Waze Volunteers Work for the Love of Maps[/URL]

[URL="https://www.fastcompany.com/90322180/amazon-could-soon-force-you-to-go-on-a-diet-according-to-one-futurist"]Amazon could soon force you to go on a diet, according to one futurist[/URL]

[QUOTE=rogue;511839][URL="https://www.fastcompany.com/90322180/amazon-could-soon-force-you-to-go-on-a-diet-according-to-one-futurist"]Amazon could soon force you to go on a diet, according to one futurist[/URL][/QUOTE]That would also fit well in the [url=https://mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=20746]Internet of :poop:[/url] thread.

I don't know if this qualifies as a science post but this article touched on a few things that I could identify with; here is one quote,
"One of the most common pieces of advice that Elon Musk gives is to think from first principles."
I recall posting something along these lines here related to deriving the Laplace Transform from first principles, something required in undergrad EE.

[url]https://getpocket.com/explore/item/how-to-tell-if-someone-is-truly-smart-or-just-average[/url]

[QUOTE=jwaltos;512146]I don't know if this qualifies as a science post but this article touched on a few things that I could identify with; here is one quote,
"One of the most common pieces of advice that Elon Musk gives is to think from first principles."[/QUOTE]

Musk's first principle apparently being "no one as smart as me has ever thought about this problem before." To his credit, he got an amazing amount of mileage and $billions of investor monies out of that. But treating the complexities of automotive design and assembly-line manufacture as a software problem, that's not working out so well for him. Neither is the [url=https://jalopnik.com/it-s-a-car-in-a-very-small-tunnel-actual-transportatio-1833473157]vacuum-tube-under-cities-for-cars thing[/url].

======================

o [url=https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47659640]Tasmanian devils 'adapting to coexist with cancer'[/url] - BBC News. Marvelous example of natural selection in action.

o [url=https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/03/190329144223.htm]66-million-year-old deathbed linked to dinosaur-killing meteor[/url] -- ScienceDaily: [i]Fossil site preserves animals killed within minutes of meteor impact[/i]

As a kid growing up, one of my favorite items in my rock collection was a thumb-tip-sized black glass tektite in small plastic display box, bought at the gift shop of the local natural history museum. That was before the origin of tektites had been settled, and the K-T impactor hypothesis was still seen as a wild speculative idea.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;512252]But treating the complexities of automotive design and assembly-line manufacture as a software problem, that's not working out so well for him. Neither is the [url=https://jalopnik.com/it-s-a-car-in-a-very-small-tunnel-actual-transportatio-1833473157]vacuum-tube-under-cities-for-cars thing[/url].[/QUOTE]There seems to be an absence of long-term thinking with that tunnel thing. I mean, for a high-speed connection between San Francisco and Los Angeles, you just have to wait 15 million years or so...

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;512295]There seems to be an absence of long-term thinking with that tunnel thing. [/QUOTE]The problem is that people are confusing The Boring Company's work (local use to help with peak flows, like the Dodger Stadium "Dugout Loop" [URL="https://www.boringcompany.com/dugout"]link[/URL]) with the the Hyperloop system. The Boring Company is intra-urban and a tunnel (which breaks tyranny of running only along the surface.)
Hyperloop is a tube (typically elevated for most of it's run) that runs at a reduced pressure inside. It is designed to run at velocities normally associate with air travel. It is inter-urban, It has a fairly high capacity and is not a car in a tunnel.
2 different problems (<20 miles in higher population density areas vs. >100 miles between dense areas) with 2 different technology regimes in play.

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;512355]The problem is that people are confusing The Boring Company's work (local use to help with peak flows, like the Dodger Stadium "Dugout Loop" [URL="https://www.boringcompany.com/dugout"]link[/URL]) with the the Hyperloop system. The Boring Company is intra-urban and a tunnel (which breaks tyranny of running only along the surface.)
Hyperloop is a tube (typically elevated for most of it's run) that runs at a reduced pressure inside. It is designed to run at velocities normally associate with air travel. It is inter-urban, It has a fairly high capacity and is not a car in a tunnel.
2 different problems (<20 miles in higher population density areas vs. >100 miles between dense areas) with 2 different technology regimes in play.[/QUOTE]
Yes, I discovered the above-ground-ness of the hyperloop when it occurred to me to wonder how they would manage the hazards of building in an earthquake zone. A long tunnel did not seem to make sense.

The hyperloop project proposes using a tube mounted on pylons with dampers to "decouple" them from the shaking.

The tube construction also has to deal with expansion and contraction.

Tunneling in LA has its own problems, though, earthquakes or no. Back in 1995, Hollywood Boulevard came to grief during a subway project, as described [url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-06-23-me-16226-story.html]here[/url] and [url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-10-20-mn-59073-story.html]here[/url].

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;512373]Yes, I discovered the above-ground-ness of the hyperloop when it occurred to me to wonder how they would manage the hazards of building in an earthquake zone. A long tunnel did not seem to make sense.[/QUOTE]The history of tunnels in earthquake zones tend to be really good. They are firmly in the earth and don't shake more than the ground. They also have good performance when crossing faults.

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;512402]The history of tunnels in earthquake zones tend to be really good. They are firmly in the earth and don't shake more than the ground. They also have good performance when crossing faults.[/QUOTE]

Yes, tunnels are obviously safer against shaking thatn above-ground structures - the bigger danger is [url=https://la.curbed.com/2019/1/16/18178979/subway-tunnels-earthquake-fault-lines]soil liquefaction[/url]:
[quote]In 1995, the deadly Great Hanshin earthquake caused liquefaction that contributed to the collapse of multiple underground structures, including a subway station in Kobe, Japan.

Zones where liquefaction is likely to occur cover large swaths of Los Angeles County, including much of the land around Dodger Stadium—where the Boring Company aims to build a high-speed tunnel. The underground portion of the soon-to-open Crenshaw/LAX Line and the site of a future Metro Purple Line station at the intersection of Wilshire and La Cienega boulevards are also located in liquefaction zones.
[image][i]
Kobe subway collapse
The collapse of a Kobe subway tunnel after the Great Hanshin earthquake created a noticeable dip in the roadway above. AFP/Getty Images
[/i]
Construction of the station is part of Metro’s Westside Purple Line extension, a project that residents and elected officials have closely scrutinized.

An environmental report from Metro indicates that the agency plans to address potential liquefaction at key points along the Purple Line route through a process called “ground improvement” in which grout or other material is literally mixed into the ground soil in order to strengthen earth in these areas and make it less prone to displacement during a major earthquake.

As simplistic a solution as this may seem, Stewart says it’s likely to be effective as long as structural engineers and geologists have properly assessed the risk.

Metro reports indicate that ground improvement in liquefaction zones along the Purple and Crenshaw/LAX lines will be coordinated on a case-by-case basis, following state guidelines.

Subway tunnels in LA are also lined with 12-inch thick concrete walls capable of bearing additional stress caused by ground movement during an earthquake. In fault zones and areas where additional hazards may be present, tunnels are lined with airtight material to guard against water and gas leaks.
[image]
[i]Liquefaction zones
Areas where liquefaction is likely to occur (shaded green) cover much of Los Angeles. California Geological Survey
[/i]
The presence of methane beneath Los Angeles is another major concern for tunnel builders in the area. It’s a key reason why Metro’s Red Line travels through East Hollywood.[/quote]
So, sure, there are ways to mitigate all the attendant hazards ... but they are *expensive*. The implication being that whatever numbers self-promoters like Musk are bandying about re. expected costs of such schemes are highly likely to be wildly optimistic, similar to Musk's history with Tesla new-model production forecasts. The difference being that the latter's accuracy mainly impact the share price and customer-waitlists for Tesla. The former, we'd be talking about taxpayer dollars, and CA surely doesn't need another hecto-billion-dollar boondoggle such as the High Speed Rail project has proven to be.

Cryptography That Can’t Be Hacked ?
 

[url]https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-the-evercrypt-library-creates-hacker-proof-cryptography-20190402/[/url]