Official "Science News" Thread

[M344587487]

Originally Posted by xilman

Why do you think that?

My answer: it will be in a museum within a century or so and consequently exposed to a much harsher environment than interplanetary space.

I have good odds on it being part of the grand entrance of a moon base, Hotel Musk perhaps.

[retina]

Originally Posted by xilman

Why do you think that?

My answer: it will be in a museum within a century or so and consequently exposed to a much harsher environment than interplanetary space.

Thankfully I am not alone in my thinking.

https://www.livescience.com/61680-wi...-in-space.html

Radiation Will Tear Elon Musk's Rocket Car to Bits in a Year

[ewmayer]

o Neanderthals were artistic like modern humans, study indicates | Science Daily

o Surprising new study redraws family tree of domesticated and 'wild' horses | Phys.org

The findings signify there are no longer true "wild" horses left, only feral horses that descend from horses once domesticated by humans, including Przewalski's horses and mustangs that descend from horses brought to North America by the Spanish.

o Amateur astronomer witnesses something scientists have been waiting decades for | BGR -- A pre-supernova energy burst; here the abstract of the resulting Nature article:

It is difficult to establish the properties of massive stars that explode as supernovae^1,2. The electromagnetic emission during the first minutes to hours after the emergence of the shock from the stellar surface conveys important information about the final evolution and structure of the exploding star^3,4,5,6. However, the unpredictable nature of supernova events hinders the detection of this brief initial phase^7,8,9. Here we report the serendipitous discovery of a newly born, normal type IIb supernova (SN 2016gkg)¹⁰, which reveals a rapid brightening at optical wavelengths of about 40 magnitudes per day. The very frequent sampling of the observations allowed us to study in detail the outermost structure of the progenitor of the supernova and the physics of the emergence of the shock. We develop hydrodynamical models of the explosion that naturally account for the complete evolution of the supernova over distinct phases regulated by different physical processes. This result suggests that it is appropriate to decouple the treatment of the shock propagation from the unknown mechanism that triggers the explosion.

o Two-way communication is possible with a single quantum particle | Science News -- Nothing in the article re. how this avoids violating the there-can-be-no-supralight-speed information-transmission law even such "sppoky action at a distance" quantum phenomena are (so far as we know) subject to, but my guess would be that that devil is buried in the "preparing the bolded required state of superposition" details:

To show that such communication is possible, Walther and colleagues sent single photons through an arrangement of mirrors and other optical devices. The setup put the photon in a superposition, sending it simultaneously to two stations that represented Alice and Bob.

By changing the phase of the light’s electromagnetic wave — shifting where the troughs and peaks of the wave fell — the researchers encoded the photon with a 0 or 1 at each station. Then, at each station, the photon — still in limbo between Alice and Bob — was sent to the opposite station. Along the way, the photon interacted with itself, interfering like water ripples combining to amplify their strength or cancel out. That interference determined whether the final photon was detected at Alice’s station or Bob’s.

And lastly a bit of "bad Olympics physics" to exercize those gray(ing) brain cells: Just a little while ago, NBC (US broadcaster of the Pyeongchang winter olympics) showed a graphic during one of the men's 1000m speedskating races: skater frozen during a high-speed turn, line from skate blate thru CG was superposed, 46 degrees above the horizontal, i.e. 1 degree above 45 degrees. Off to the side was an arrow with a text "2.5 Gs" denoting the centrifugal force allegedly induced by said turn. Even without knowing anything about the skater's speed or the radius of the turn, or resort to calculator or trig tables, it should be easy to spot the error.

[retina]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

And lastly a bit of "bad Olympics physics" to exercize those gray(ing) brain cells: Just a little while ago, NBC (US broadcaster of the Pyeongchang winter olympics) showed a graphic during one of the men's 1000m speedskating races: skater frozen during a high-speed turn, line from skate blate thru CG was superposed, 46 degrees above the horizontal, i.e. 1 degree above 45 degrees. Off to the side was an arrow with a text "2.5 Gs" denoting the centrifugal force allegedely induced by said turn. Even without knowing anything about the skater's speed or the radius of the turn, or resort to calculator or trig tables, it should be easy to spot the error.

Maybe the ice rink has a gravity field generator underneath the ice. A small amount of neutronium would do the trick. Lay it out nice and smooth across the base and cover with ice. Easy.

[ewmayer]

Horsepox synthesis: A case of the unilateralist’s curse? | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

[rogue]

Fire, Swords & Magic: The Art of Sub-Saharan African Swordsmithing

After the Olympics, Some Olympians Will Just Give Up

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Very creative people have a special kind of brain activity

The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’

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The Woman Who Shaped the Study of Fossil Brains

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Meteorological Mystery Surrounds What Caused Massive Tree Fall in Northwest Washington

Ancient Cave Drawings and Early Human Language Linked in New Study

One Hour of Video Gaming Can Increase the Brain’s Ability to Focus

How to build a human brain

Soon you may be able to 3D print clothing in your own home

[ewmayer]

Humans thrived in South Africa through the Toba supervolcanic eruption 74,000 years ago | Phys.org -- Just as marine species fare better than land once during mass extinctions, humans whose diet relies on seafood do better during climatic "nuclear winters".

The cliff that changed our understanding of time | BBC Travel -- No, not Cliff Robertson, nor Cary Granite, though both were undoubtedly gneiss fellows. (Though Cliff was reputed to be afflicted by bouts of excessive sedimentality, especially during prolonged spells of inclement weather.)

[kladner]

That is some fascinating stuff, Ernst. One thing leads to another, and I ended up reading about Harris Tweed, and the results of the Toba super eruption, and baby eels, and...

[Dr Sardonicus]

I found the transcript of an installment of NOVA from 2006 about Toba I remembered having watched, Mystery of the Megavolcano. The NOVA site currently has a stupid tab plastered over the upper-left side of every page I looked at, but you can copy-paste the transcript to a plain-vanilla text file.

One thing I particularly recalled was the way a quaternary tephrochronologist ("volcano detective") named John Westgate dated ash samples, a method called "fission track dating." He found that a bunch of ash samples he had received from an incredibly wide area not only had nearly identical chemistry, but were also just about the same age -- around 75,000 years old.

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

One thing I particularly recalled was the way a quaternary tephrochronologist ("volcano detective") named John Westgate dated ash samples, a method called "fission track dating." He found that a bunch of ash samples he had received from an incredibly wide area not only had nearly identical chemistry, but were also just about the same age -- around 75,000 years old.

Indeed, the Toba eruption must've been truly awe-inspiring.

Aside: Someone needs to do an experiment at how well trotting out the impressive job title "quaternary tephrochronologist" works as a bar pick-up line. :) I also enjoy a little mental game in which I try to conjure up words of 20+ letters ... scientific words like this suffixed with e.g. -cally make for a great source, e.g. paleoclimatologically [21], microradiochemically [20], tephrochronologically [21], helioseismologically [20].

[Dubslow]

Helioseismology sounds like a somewhat interesting area of study. At least, I think I'd like it more than tephrochronology. (Also, I'd never heard that particular Greek word before, tephros. Who knew there was a scientific field of study devoted to it? Er, I guess besides you two and those who do it of course )