Official "Science News" Thread

[ewmayer]

@Paul: Andrei Tarkovsky's classic 1972 film Solaris, based on Stanislaw Lem's 1961 novel of the same name, centers on the idea of an alien "sentient planetary surface".

And the idea of life-not-as-we-know-it was of course the basis of many episodes in the Star Trek franchise ... my favorite is Devil in the Dark, where the Silicon-based, rock-dissolving alien looks like a giant puddle of plastic fake vomit. "OMG - Spock is trying to mind-meld with a giant puddle of fake vomit ... someone stop him!" :)

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Ebola Is Now Curable. Here’s How the New Treatments Work | WIRED

[rogue]

The Incredible Brain Benefits of Silence

Why Does Presidio Have One of the Best High School Rocketry Clubs in the Country?

Harvard Spent 80 Years Studying Happiness, and We Now Know the 1 Key Habit That Makes People Happier. (The Problem: Most People Never Even Try)

The hypersane are among us, if only we are prepared to look

How a Strange Grid Reveals Hidden Connections Between Simple Numbers

WAIT, WHAT? NEW RESEARCH SAYS INTERNET USE IS KILLING YOUR MEMORY

Staring at seagulls helps protect food, say scientists

Why Does the U.S. Army Own So Many Fossils?

A Harvard and MIT Study Says Doing 1 Simple Thing Is 'Almost Magical' for Your Child's Brain Development and Success

Coffee and Chocolate Make You Smarter, According to Latest Neuroscience

The Con Man Who Became a True-Crime Writer

What Alfred Binet and Maria Montessori Can Teach Us about Intelligence

Candy Land Was Invented for Polio Wards

AI Decodes Speech and Hearing Based on Brain Activity

[kladner]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

@Paul: Andrei Tarkovsky's classic 1972 film Solaris, based on Stanislaw Lem's 1961 novel of the same name, centers on the idea of an alien "sentient planetary surface".

And the idea of life-not-as-we-know-it was of course the basis of many episodes in the Star Trek franchise ... my favorite is Devil in the Dark, where the Silicon-based, rock-dissolving alien looks like a giant puddle of plastic fake vomit. "OMG - Spock is trying to mind-meld with a giant puddle of fake vomit ... someone stop him!" :)

My sci-fi reading habit exposed me to the idea of life based on different chemistry. To name a couple of authors, C. J. Cherryh has "methane breathers" and Niven (or maybe one of his spin-off authors) introduced silicon-based Martians. The latter were done in by a human "protector" who smashed a giant icy asteroid into the planet, making it too wet for the natives to survive.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

<snip>
And the idea of life-not-as-we-know-it was of course the basis of many episodes in the Star Trek franchise ... my favorite is Devil in the Dark, where the Silicon-based, rock-dissolving alien looks like a giant puddle of plastic fake vomit. "OMG - Spock is trying to mind-meld with a giant puddle of fake vomit ... someone stop him!" :)
<snip>

I remember the Horta. It made me think of a shag rug on wheels. Never thought of "fake vomit," but now that you mention it...

That episode also involved what I think is Dr. McCoy's finest hour. First, a wonderful rejoinder indicating that his expertise did not include treating injuries to silicon-based life forms:

KIRK: Help it. Treat it.
MCCOY: I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer.

Then, rising to the occasion:

MCCOY: It won't die. By golly, Jim, I'm beginning to think I can cure a rainy day.
KIRK: Can you help it?
MCCOY: Help it? I cured it.
KIRK: How?
MCCOY: Well, I had the ship beam down a hundred pounds of that thermoconcrete. You know, the kind we use to build emergency shelters out of. It's mostly silicone. So I just trowelled it into the wound, and it'll act like a bandage until it heals. Take a look. It's as good as new.

When it seems something dire may be about to happen (like an oncoming car cutting it way too close when passing) I sometimes shout a phrase from that episode:

NO KILL I

The 1949 SF story Alien Earth by Edmond Hamilton is a story about life as we know it -- but not as we know it.

Another "Life as we don't know it" story is Call Me Joe by Poul Anderson. Of course, an identical plot device being used in Avatar was entirely coincidental...

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by rogue

WAIT, WHAT? NEW RESEARCH SAYS INTERNET USE IS KILLING YOUR MEMORY

I really want to read that article because the all-caps headline tells me it's important, but I keep forgetting to click the link!

[rogue]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

I really want to read that article because the all-caps headline tells me it's important, but I keep forgetting to click the link!

Sorry, but I only copy and paste the text from the title on the page when I post those links. Blame the people behind the website.

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by rogue

Sorry, but I only copy and paste the text from the title on the page when I post those links. Blame the people behind the website.

I only mentioned the caps incidentally ... was actually trying to make a feeble joke based on the article title in question. ;)

[rogue]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

I only mentioned the caps incidentally ... was actually trying to make a feeble joke based on the article title in question. ;)

I know. I only realized that after I posted my response.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

I really want to read that article because the all-caps headline tells me it's important, but I keep forgetting to click the link!

In the series The Day the Universe Changed (broadcast in the USA in 1986), at the beginning of the fourth episode A Matter of Fact, James Burke said (my emphasis)

Science and technology have taken away the real thing from everything we do, because 500 years ago, something happened that gave us today's artificial way of living, took away our memories and cut us off from direct contact with the world.

That "something" was the invention of the printing press.

[rogue]

Our Brains Tell Stories So We Can Live

Too Darn Smart

Finding Amelia Earhart’s Plane Seemed Impossible. Then Came a Startling Clue.

Spot the psychopath

Astronomers Spot Unprecedented Flashes From Our Galaxy's Black Hole

HOW SMALLER CITIES ARE TRYING TO PLUG AMERICA’S BRAIN DRAIN

The Government Taste Testers Who Reshaped America’s Diet

Divers Find 2,000-Year-Old Shipwreck Graveyard Near Tiny Greek Island

[ewmayer]

In the wake of a recent discussion of the climate impacts of agricultural over in the Climate Change thread, a timely article from The Guardian:

America's agriculture is 48 times more toxic than 25 years ago. Blame neonics | The Guardian

[Neonicotinoids] were pitched as an answer to pests’ increasing resistance to the reigning insecticides. But in an effort to more effectively kill pests, we created an explosion in the toxicity of agriculture not just for unwanted bugs but for the honeybees, ladybugs, beetles and the vast abundance of other insects that sustain life on Earth.

What we now know is that neonics are not only considerably more toxic to insects than other insecticides, they are far more persistent in the environment. While others break down within hours or days, neonics can remain in soils, plants and waterways for months to years, killing insects long after they’re applied and creating a compounding toxic burden

Neonics can remain in soils, plants and waterways for months to years, killing insects long after they're applied The new study, published in the science journal PLOS ONE and co-authored by one of usne, designed a way to quantify this persistence and combine it with data on the toxicity and total pounds used of neonics and other insecticides. For the first time, we have a time-lapse of impact: we can compare year-to-year changes in the toxicity of US agriculture for insects. The results? Since neonics were first introduced 25 years ago, US agriculture has become 48 times more toxic to insect life, and neonics are responsible for 92% of that surge in toxicity.

Looking at this toxic time-lapse, another interesting detail emerges: there’s a dramatic increase in the toxic burden of US agriculture for insects starting in the mid-2000s. That’s when beekeepers began reporting significant losses of their hives. It’s also when the pesticide companies that manufacture neonics, Bayer and Syngenta, found a lucrative new use for these chemicals: coating the seeds of crops like corn and soy that are grown on millions of acres across the country. These seed coatings now account for the vast majority of neonic use in the US.

This study comes on the heels of the first analysis of global insect populations, which found 40% of species face extinction, with near total insect loss possible by century’s end, driven in part by pesticides, with neonics a particular concern.

For all of this harm, farmers get few, if any, benefits from neonic seed coatings. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, they provide “little or no overall benefits to soybean production”, though nearly half of soybean seeds in the US are treated. Similar analyses have found the same for corn, yet up to 100% of US corn seeds are treated.

All this risk without reward has led some regulators to take action. The European Union voted to ban the worst neonics in 2018. But the US government has so far failed to act. Chemical company lobbying can explain much of this inaction. Bayer, maker of the most widely used neonics, spent an estimated $4.3m lobbying in the US on behalf of its agricultural division in 2017.

ot only has the EPA stalled scientific review of neonics, last year, the Fish and Wildlife Service reversed an Obama-era ban on use of these dangerous insecticides in wildlife refuges. Congress could change this. Democratic representative Earl Blumenauer’s Saving America’s Pollinators Act would ban neonicotinoids and other systemic, pollinator-toxic insecticides. The bill has 56 co-sponsors, but faces a major hurdle clearing the House agriculture committee given that the chairman representative, Collin Peterson, a Democrat from Minnesota, counts Bayer and the pesticide industry’s trade association, Croplife America, among his top contributors.