Official "Science News" Thread

[jwaltos]

.. a peryton can be generated at 1.4 GHz when a microwave oven door is
opened prematurely and the telescope is at an appropriate relative angle. Radio emission
escaping from microwave ovens during the magnetron shut-down phase neatly
explain..

..Standard practice at ATNF observatories is not to
allow the use of microwave ovens on site when observing in
the 2.4 GHz band..

I'm not even going to turn my toaster on when looking at the sky through my telescope anymore..and I'll be making sure
no bats will be dropping presents on the attached antenna I have rigged.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Identifying the source of perytons at the Parkes radio telescope | arXiv.org

That surely must be a strong candidate for "funniest scientific-paper abstract of all time" - rather reminiscent of Penzias and Wilson's reporting of the issues caused by a certain "white dielectric material" in their original CMB detector at Murray Hill, NJ.

That radio telescope was the subject of a movie that came out in the USA in 2001, entitled The Dish.

[M29]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Identifying the source of perytons at the Parkes radio telescope | arXiv.org

That surely must be a strong candidate for "funniest scientific-paper abstract of all time" - rather reminiscent of Penzias and Wilson's reporting of the issues caused by a certain "white dielectric material" in their original CMB detector at Murray Hill, NJ.

Am I to understand that space aliens have HUGE micro-wave ovens?

[ewmayer]

o Discovery of Ancient Spearpoints in Texas Has Some Archaeologists Questioning the History of Early Americas | Gizmodo

o How Climate Change Helped the Dinosaurs Come to Power - The Atlantic

In Italy, the dawn of the greatest empire in the history of the world is marked, not by broken marble pediments strewn across the seven hills of Rome, but modest three-toed footprints pressed into rocks far to the north, high in the Italian Alps. They were left by coastal dinosaurs patrolling the tidal flats of a tropical lagoon over 230 million years ago, and they’re among the earliest in Earth’s history. Perhaps more remarkable, though, than this sudden appearance of dinosaurs in ancient Europe, are the strange rocks which host them. The legendary reptile trackways appear just above crumbling bands of red clay that cut through the cream-colored peaks of the Dolomites—a striking dash in the strata that marks one of the most bizarre climate events ever.

Almost a quarter-billion years ago, rains soaked the arid wastes of the supercontinent Pangaea for more than a million years. When the floodwaters retreated, a new world was born.

I joined up with paleontologist Massimo Bernardi in Trento, Italy hoping to learn more about this primeval washout, known as the Carnian Pluvial Episode. It was one of the oddest climate events, and most severe biotic crises, in the history of life.

Re. "Carnian", the subrange of the Alps in question is known as the Carnic Alps.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by M29

Am I to understand that space aliens have HUGE micro-wave ovens?

I am unaware of any credible reports of space aliens that did not have huge microwave ovens.

[rogue]

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[kladner]

From a link on Neuroscience News:
https://neurosciencenews.com/blood-t...-decline-2087/

The researchers calculated the volumes of grey matter within the brain and explored the differences between different blood types.

The results, published in The Brain Research Bulletin, show that individuals with an ‘O’ blood type have more grey matter in the posterior proportion of the cerebellum.

In comparison, those with ‘A’, ‘B’ or ‘AB’ blood types had smaller grey matter volumes in temporal and limbic regions of the brain, including the left hippocampus, which is one of the earliest part of the brain damaged by Alzheimer’s disease.

These findings indicate that smaller volumes of grey matter are associated with non-‘O’ blood types.

As we age a reduction of grey matter volumes is normally seen in the brain, but later in life this grey matter difference between blood types will intensify as a consequence of ageing.

[xilman]

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/soci...ants-and-space

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by xilman

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/soci...ants-and-space

But is it moral fibre, erm I mean fiber?

More seriously, I have grave concerns about the potential environmental impacts associated with the seemingly inevitable mass-usage of carbon nanotube materials. We're already reading about a world awash in microplastics, which, compared to nanotubes, are relatively benign at the molecular-electrochemical-reactivity level. Not so for nanotubes, and those literally have the capability to work their way into the cells of living things. You don't want *that* kind of fiber in your diet, as it were.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

<snip>
We're already reading about a world awash in microplastics, which, compared to nanotubes, are relatively benign at the molecular-electrochemical-reactivity level. Not so for nanotubes, and those literally have the capability to work their way into the cells of living things. You don't want *that* kind of fiber in your diet, as it were.

I noticed the piece said "1 cubic centimeter" of the stuff. That's a goodly amount, but it didn't say whether it was a thin slab, a brick, or a longish strand of the stuff. The piece says this stuff would not break under a weight of 160 elephants or "more than 800 tonnes." Even a non-expert like me can tell, that depends on the thickness of the cable. I'm no expert on "strength of materials," and it's been decades since I took a physics course that dealt with elastic moduli. I had to look things up.

Now a "tonne" is a "metric ton" of 1000 kg. So 800 tonnes is 800,000 kg. Now if you assume a cable with cross-sectional area of 1 square centimeter, that's 10^-4 square meters, so hanging those elephants from a cable with that cross-sectional area comes to 8,000,000,000 kg per square meter.

But that's mass per unit area. The article says the tensile strength is 80 gigapascals. A pascal is force per unit area -- 1 newton per square meter. Force is mass times acceleration. A kg at at the Earth's surface -- "one g acceleration"-- weighs 9.8 newtons, so we get 7.8 x 10¹⁰ newtons per square meter, which is pretty close -- and the article did say "more than 800 tonnes." So, it looks like you could suspend those 160 elephants from a cable with cross-sectional area of 1 square centimeter.

Perhaps this means they've produced a cc of microtubes 1 cm long. I'm not sure. That sounds like a significant achievement.

In any case, I share ewmayer's concerns about this stuff getting into the environment.

[firejuggler]

KEPLER, the telescope which helped find thousands of exoplanet has been retired. It doesnot have any more fuel. https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7272
TESS is taking the torch and hopefully will help find others. https://twitter.com/NASA_TESS/status...03065685422080

Dawn which visited Vesta and Ceres ( two big object in the main asteroid belt) has ran out of hydrazine, and can't point back to earth, is retired too. https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7275


A sad week for space exploration