# Sci-Tech News



## Schrody (Feb 16, 2016)

Post here interesting news and articles from the world of Medicine, Technology, and Science. Discussing, but not debating, is allowed  

*Printing the organs.* What once was in the deep corners of the Sci-Fi writer's minds, today is a reality. Of course, it's still haven't hit the commercial value, but it will... Soon, loosing an organ like an ear, eye, skin or any of the interior organs will be something usual, like going to a shopping. "One kidney, please. And make it quick, I have a meeting in '15."


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## Joe_Bassett (Feb 16, 2016)

Don't have an article, but gravity waves were discovered recently.  Einstein _was_ right.


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## Riis Marshall (Feb 16, 2016)

Hello Schrody

Time marches on. I remember when, if you were super rich  and could spend $200 on something hardly anybody in the neighbourhood had, you could buy - wait for it, folks - _*a hand-held calculator that could not only add, subtract, multiply and divide, but also had a constant you could store for multiple calculations*_ - sorry no square root or memory function, that would have to wait until the dim and distant future.

Goodness, what will they think of next?

Seriously, Folks, the advances in medicine and surgery come faster and faster every day.

All the best with your writing.

Warmest regards
Riis


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## dale (Feb 16, 2016)

i find all the news circulating on the mysterious "planet x" interesting. from the mainstream to the whacked
out conspiracy sites. it's an interesting possibility.


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## Schrody (Feb 16, 2016)

GuitarHiro97 said:


> Don't have an article, but gravity waves were discovered recently.  Einstein _was_ right.



I know. Here's an* article.*



Riis Marshall said:


> Hello Schrody
> 
> Time marches on. I remember when, if you were super rich  and could spend $200 on something hardly anybody in the neighbourhood had, you could buy - wait for it, folks - _*a hand-held calculator that could not only add, subtract, multiply and divide, but also had a constant you could store for multiple calculations*_ - sorry no square root or memory function, that would have to wait until the dim and distant future.
> 
> ...



If someone from the beginning of the 20th century marched right in, he would be in a state of shock; airplanes, TV's, cell phones and computers? Technology is wonderful, but we should remember that technology should serve us - not the other way around.


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## Schrody (Feb 16, 2016)

dale said:


> i find all the news circulating on the mysterious "planet x" interesting. from the mainstream to the whacked
> out conspiracy sites. it's an interesting possibility.



You mean the discovery of the new planet in the Solar system?


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## dale (Feb 16, 2016)

Schrody said:


> You mean the discovery of the new planet in the Solar system?



yeah.....https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&q=planet+x&sourceid=opera&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8


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## dale (Feb 16, 2016)

i hadn't even heard of it until a couple weeks ago when NASA started acknowledging it enough to take seriously....

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...s-early-confirm-Planet-X-pledges-s-ll-it.html


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## Schrody (Feb 16, 2016)

dale said:


> yeah.....https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&q=planet+x&sourceid=opera&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8



You mean - *this*


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## -xXx- (Feb 16, 2016)

i would like a cup like this:

*read*

*watch*


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## bdcharles (Feb 16, 2016)

Turns out *everything is terrible and we're all going to die. *(even though it says we'll be fine)


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## Blade (Feb 16, 2016)

This is a rather brief article on the discovery of what appears to be a new homo species in South Africa. It hardly seems worthwhile having any opinion about human origins as someone always comes along and upsets everything.:blue::scratch:

New Homo Species

I looked around a bit for another source but could not find one, not a surprise really as the above article is dated today.


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## Schrody (Feb 16, 2016)

bdcharles said:


> Turns out *everything is terrible and we're all going to die. *(even though it says we'll be fine)



Yep, the two galaxies will collide, and the universe will die in Big Freeze - better put some warm clothes 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			







Blade said:


> This is a rather brief article on the discovery of what appears to be a new homo species in South Africa. It hardly seems worthwhile having any opinion about human origins as someone always comes along and upsets everything.:blue::scratch:
> 
> New Homo Species
> 
> I looked around a bit for another source but could not find one, not a surprise really as the above article is dated today.



Ah, Homo Naledi. It was in the media a few months ago  We indeed live in the most interesting times


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## Schrody (Feb 16, 2016)

But just imagine seeing this on your night sky:






... a view to die for... Too bad we won't be here to see it...


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## InstituteMan (Feb 16, 2016)

The gravity waves discovery is under appreciated. It's not just confirming Einstein--it's also the observational opportunities they offer.

Researchers have already used gravitational waves to observe astronomical phenomena. There were something like 12 papers released simultaneously that used gravitational waves for observational purposes. This is the first way of observing the remote universe that doesn't use photons of some wavelength humans have ever developed.* 

This could let us "see" dark matter of many types. It could reveal the texture and mass distribution of the universe in detail beyond anything we've been able to achieve. This is a lovely piece of confirmation of General Relativity, but no one really doubted General Relativity anymore, since it had been confirmed in many other ways. The use of gravitational wave technology for making astronomical observations is what has me excited.

*Arguably, cosmic rays have permitted observations using high energy particles other than photons. If you really stretch the definition of "observation," neutrino detectors can spot the moon because of its slight attenuation of neutrinos. Neither of those are particularly helpful at resolving astronomical events, however.


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## dale (Feb 16, 2016)

Blade said:


> This is a rather brief article on the discovery of what appears to be a new homo species in South Africa. It hardly seems worthwhile having any opinion about human origins as someone always comes along and upsets everything.:blue::scratch:
> 
> New Homo Species
> 
> I looked around a bit for another source but could not find one, not a surprise really as the above article is dated today.



they've also determined there were hobbits....

http://phys.org/news/2016-02-mystery-hobbits-humans.html


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## Mesafalcon (Feb 16, 2016)

GuitarHiro97 said:


> Don't have an article, but gravity waves were discovered recently.  Einstein _was_ right.



Einstein is/was right quite often it seems. I think there was something special about him... 

It's best to have folk like Einstein held in your high regards rather than famous people who entertain you... actors, musicians, and sports stars... I can only respect these people to a limited extent since folk like Einstein exsisted (of course there is the exceptional star who goes above and beyond the call of duty. But, 99% of them watch there own back and protect their reputation by conforming)


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## Mesafalcon (Feb 16, 2016)

bdcharles said:


> Turns out *everything is terrible and we're all going to die. *(even though it says we'll be fine)



It's only 4 billion years away so, better start working on our bucket lists.


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## Schrody (Feb 17, 2016)

Mesafalcon said:


> Einstein is/was right quite often it seems. I think there was something special about him...
> 
> It's best to have folk like Einstein held in your high regards rather than famous people who entertain you... actors, musicians, and sports stars... I can only respect these people to a limited extent since folk like Einstein exsisted (of course there is the exceptional star who goes above and beyond the call of duty. But, 99% of them watch there own back and protect their reputation by conforming)



As beloved as Einstein is, and as much as he was right, he was also wrong. I blame him for a lack of vision, intuition. Einstein preferred steady state and static universe, the universe we don't live in. He discarded things like quantum mechanics, because it was too bizarre, and although intelligent, his mind couldn't process such thoughts. Dark matter problem could've been solved 70 years ago.


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## InstituteMan (Feb 17, 2016)

Schrody said:


> As beloved as Einstein is, and as much as he was right, he was also wrong. I blame him for a lack of vision, intuition. Einstein preferred steady state and static universe, the universe we don't live in. He discarded things like quantum mechanics, because it was too bizarre, and although intelligent, his mind couldn't process such thoughts. Dark matter problem could've been solved 70 years ago.



I dunno, Schrodes, it took a lot of intuition to come up with Special Relativity. Special strikes people as profoundly weird still today, but based upon the slim reed of an interferometer experiment no one could explain, Einstein realized that the answer was "just" time dilation--a pretty big intuitive leap. General was a mathematical slog to extend Special, but it took some intuition to know to make the slog. 

Yeah, he wasn't a fan of quantum mechanics, but his work with Brownian Motion still laid part of the early foundation for the field. Einstein DID find the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics disturbing, but so did pretty much everyone working in the field then--Einstein got quoted about that more because he was famous.

We should especially cut him some posthumous slack on his steady state universe. His theories initially predicted a changing universe, but ALL the observational evidence of his day supported a static universe, which is why he added terms to his General Relativity equations. It was only later that our telescopes revealed that Einstein didn't need those extra terms to keep the universe in a steady state. And it was only later yet that observations proved that there's dark matter, and then only later yet dark energy.

Einstein didn't get everything right, but he had the best track record of a theoretist since the dawn of modern physics.


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## Schrody (Feb 17, 2016)

Don't get me wrong, Einstein was one of the greatest scientists since science exists. ... and that's why I can't understand that he rejected quantum theory so lightly. It was introduced in the 1920's, so it wasn't anything new. Of course, nobody can't know everything, but I guess just the idea of a quantum was too fuzzy in his head. I quite frankly love the idea, because the world is a bizarre place, not steady and static.


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## InstituteMan (Feb 17, 2016)

Schrody said:


> Don't get me wrong, Einstein was one of the greatest scientists since science exists. ... and that's why I can't understand that he rejected quantum theory so lightly. It was introduced in the 1920's, so it wasn't anything new. Of course, nobody can't know everything, but I guess just the idea of a quantum was too fuzzy in his head. I quite frankly love the idea, because the world is a bizarre place, not steady and static.



We should realize that the conceptual underpinnings of quantum mechanics didn't come along until well after Einstein's prime. If you brave the Wikipedia timeline, at the time Einstein was in his most prolific years most of what we call quantum mechanics were a series of weird experimental results that we realized were the first evidence of quantum mechanics after the fact. 

I have a feeling that Einstein would have quite liked the Standard Model of Particle Physics, but the development of that theory didn't really start for another ~30 years after General Relativity, and it wasn't in wha most would call its "final" form until the 1970's. As a big picture theorist working before the Second World War, the only kind of physics that suited him was the Relativity he created. I suspect that quantum was still too down in the weeds of developing particle detector technology to hold his attention long.


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## Schrody (Feb 18, 2016)

*A 5D disc.* A storage technology from the future.


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## InstituteMan (Feb 18, 2016)

This first-person story about the hunt for a mushroom that allegedly drives women to what we will call "an ecstatic state" has been in my portions of the interwebs over the past couple of days.

While this particular bit of science is ripe for jokes ("Sheila left me for a mushroom!"), the discovery of such a mushroom (if it exists) would be important for both basic understanding of the human brain and applied medicine.


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## LeeC (Feb 18, 2016)




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## Blade (Feb 18, 2016)

A story that claims that Human- Neanderthal interbreeding occurred about 100,000 years ago, much earlier than previously believed. This throws a big wrench into the knowledge of human origins firstly because it tosses up the issue of how much genetic exchange was Human to Neanderthal or visa versa as well as exactly when and where, and over what time period, the exchanges occurred. :-k

Human-Neanderthal genetic exchange estimated at 100,000 BC.

The origins issue seems to have endless twists and turns and never seems to settle long in one spot.:scratch:

Here is another article along the same lines, complete with charts and arrows, demonstrating just how muddled this whole scene has become. 

 Interbreeding Bonanza


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## Schrody (Feb 21, 2016)

*Largest rocky world found!*


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## Schrody (Feb 25, 2016)

Say what? Okay, maybe this news doesn't belong here, but I didn't want to make a new thread...

Anyway... the fastest electric car is produced in... Croatia? 

Yep, it seems that Croatian company made the fastest car, some even say faster than Tesla, called Concept One. 

As Mashable writes: "_Thanks to its 1,088-horsepower (provided by an 8,450-cell battery pack),  the all-wheel-drive Concept_One will do 0 to 62mph in around 2.6  seconds, with a top speed of around 220 mph._" 

I'm glad my government didn't destroy all the visionaries, and here's to a better future! You can find the article *here.*


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## Schrody (Feb 26, 2016)

*China's scientist made a lab sperm! *


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## Deleted member 56686 (Feb 26, 2016)

If that's true that sounds kind of scary, Schrods.


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## Schrody (Feb 26, 2016)

Well, not human sperm :lol:


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## Schrody (Mar 5, 2016)

*Scientists Have Recorded Sound At The Bottom Of The Mariana Trench - And It's Completely Terrifying*


*10,000 Year-Old Monolith Discovered Under The Ocean*


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## Schrody (Mar 8, 2016)

*New physics is being born before our eyes?*


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## InstituteMan (Mar 8, 2016)

Schrody said:


> *New physics is being born before our eyes?*



Exciting! This is why we need particle accelerators: to show where our theories are wrong.


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## Schrody (Mar 9, 2016)

InstituteMan said:


> Exciting! This is why we need particle accelerators: to show where our theories are wrong.



I always thought that our physical laws aren't necessarily applicable to the whole universe... guess I was right?


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## Blade (Mar 9, 2016)

Here is an interesting idea, a pre-fab root cellar. It looks a bit large for single family use IMHO but it may have great longer than refrigeration storage potential. :-k

 Pre-fab root cellar​


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## InstituteMan (Mar 9, 2016)

Blade said:


> Here is an interesting idea, a pre-fab root cellar. It looks a bit large for single family use IMHO but it may have great longer than refrigeration storage potential. :-k
> 
> Pre-fab root cellar​



That's heck of an idea. I've wanted a root cellar for years. That looks like a good way to get one.


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## Schrody (Mar 14, 2016)

*Microwave oven to blame for mystery signal that left astronomers stumped *


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## Terry D (Mar 14, 2016)

Schrody said:


> I always thought that our physical laws aren't necessarily applicable to the whole universe... guess I was right?



No. What works in one part of our universe will work everywhere. That's because the laws of physics were all born in the first few fractions of a nano-second after the big bang. They've just been spreading ever since. If there is something we've gotten wrong -- and particle physics proves the math geeks right more often than it proves them wrong (see Einstein, Albert) -- it is because we interpreted our data wrong, not because anything has changed.


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## InstituteMan (Mar 14, 2016)

Terry D said:


> No. What works in one part of our universe will work everywhere. That's because the laws of physics were all born in the first few fractions of a nano-second after the big bang. They've just been spreading ever since. If there is something we've gotten wrong -- and particle physics proves the math geeks right more often than it proves them wrong (see Einstein, Albert) -- it is because we interpreted our data wrong, not because anything has changed.



Very correct. Even though there are a few things that have sort of 'changed,' they weren't the fundamental things. 

For example, the very early universe was opaque to electromagnetic radiation. When it became transparent to electromagnetic radiation the Microwave Background Radiation we now know came to be. The transition from opaque to transparent didn't happen because the laws of the universe changed, but because the universe expanded to the point where the same physics led to a different result. There was also an initial unity of the electromagnetic force, the weak nuclear force, and the strong nuclear force in the very early stages of the universe (which relates to the opacity to electromagnetic radiation), but those forces split as the energy density of the universe decreased. 

There's lots of cool "weird" physics in the universe, but the weirdness has thus far always been the result of atypical (to us) conditions or physics that we don't yet understand. The physics is constant; the variables are the conditions and our understanding of the physics.


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## Schrody (Mar 14, 2016)

Terry D said:


> No. What works in one part of our universe will work everywhere. That's because the laws of physics were all born in the first few fractions of a nano-second after the big bang. They've just been spreading ever since. If there is something we've gotten wrong -- and particle physics proves the math geeks right more often than it proves them wrong (see Einstein, Albert) -- it is because we interpreted our data wrong, not because anything has changed.



No, I was referring to the link I posted and "birth" of new physics - meaning some laws we thought were good are actually wrong, or, in the best case, undetermined, unfinished. That's what I meant by "not all laws apply everywhere". Of course, we explored only a small portion of the Universe, so anything's possible. Look how much science progressed since the beginning of a 20th century. And don't get me started on parallel universes...



InstituteMan said:


> Very correct. Even though there are a few things that have sort of 'changed,' they weren't the fundamental things.
> 
> For example, the very early universe was opaque to electromagnetic radiation. When it became transparent to electromagnetic radiation the Microwave Background Radiation we now know came to be. The transition from opaque to transparent didn't happen because the laws of the universe changed, but because the universe expanded to the point where the same physics led to a different result. There was also an initial unity of the *electromagnetic force*, *the weak nuclear force*, and the bin the very early stages of the universe (which relates to the opacity to electromagnetic radiation), but those forces split as the energy density of the universe decreased.
> 
> There's lots of cool "weird" physics in the universe, but the weirdness has thus far always been the result of atypical (to us) conditions or physics that we don't yet understand. The physics is constant; the variables are the conditions and our understanding of the physics.



You forgot gravity, the weakest of all forces.


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## InstituteMan (Mar 14, 2016)

Schrody said:


> You forgot gravity, the weakest of all forces.



Actually, I'm sneaky. Gravity hasn't been theoretically unified with the other three yet. The people who do so will go down as heroes in physics.


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## Schrody (Mar 15, 2016)

True. I'm just reading about gravity, and the author contemplates that gravity does not exist, rather, not in the way we think it does. Whether you're supporter of Newton (any two bodies in the universe attract each other with a force that is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them)* or Einstein (the gravitational force is a fictitious force due to the curvature of spacetime, because the gravitational acceleration of a body in free fall is due to its world line being a geodesic of spacetime)*, it is a really interesting topic. Until some major breakthrough happens, I think it's not wrong to put gravity in the four fundamental forces 








*from Wikipedia


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## InstituteMan (Mar 15, 2016)

Schrody said:


> True. I'm just reading about gravity, and the author contemplates that gravity does not exist, rather, not in the way we think it does. Whether you're supporter of Newton (any two bodies in the universe attract each other with a force that is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them)* or Einstein (the gravitational force is a fictitious force due to the curvature of spacetime, because the gravitational acceleration of a body in free fall is due to its world line being a geodesic of spacetime)*, it is a really interesting topic. Until some major breakthrough happens, I think it's not wrong to put gravity in the four fundamental forces
> 
> 
> 
> ...



FWIW, there's no--and I do mean *no*--reason to be a supporter of Newton in the theoretical discussion of gravity. Newtonian models are plenty fine to use for most Earthly applications, and much easier to use than Relativistic models (and they reduce to the same answer as Relativistic models under typical Earth conditions), but there's no question as to which is the model that more accurately reflects the universe. The tricky question is whether we need to reconcile General Relativity with quantum mechanics (be that the quantum mechanics of the Standard Model or something else) or whether we need a new model that explains both of the great branches of modern physics.


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## Schrody (Mar 16, 2016)

InstituteMan said:


> FWIW, there's no--and I do mean *no*--reason to be a supporter of Newton in the theoretical discussion of gravity. Newtonian models are plenty fine to use for most Earthly applications, and much easier to use than Relativistic models (and they reduce to the same answer as Relativistic models under typical Earth conditions), but there's no question as to which is the model that more accurately reflects the universe. The tricky question is whether we need to reconcile General Relativity with quantum mechanics (be that the quantum mechanics of the Standard Model or something else) or whether we need a new model that explains both of the great branches of modern physics.



Well, of course nobody who knows anything about physics is going to be more pro Newton than Einstein. But people believe Earth's flat, so what's that telling you?  

Quantum mechanics proved many times that is real (on the dissatisfaction of the opponents), so it probably is true for any other aspect. They recently proved gravitational waves - something that Einstein predicted, so it might be that q. mechanics and relativity are in a some strange, love me-hate me relationship. Of course, he was also wrong is some other things, and if only he could've see past that, dark matter might've be solved decades ago! Maybe we would finally have the M theory, who knows? I mean, we had so many new discoveries, and yet, the textbooks still teach that everything is made of an atom.


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## Terry D (Mar 16, 2016)

Schrody said:


> Well, of course nobody who knows anything about physics is going to be more pro Newton than Einstein. But people believe Earth's flat, so what's that telling you?
> 
> Quantum mechanics proved many times that is real (on the dissatisfaction of the opponents), so it probably is true for any other aspect. They recently proved gravitational waves - something that Einstein predicted, so it might be that q. mechanics and relativity are in a some strange, love me-hate me relationship. *Of course, he was also wrong is some other things, and if only he could've see past that, dark matter might've be solved decades ago!* Maybe we would finally have the M theory, who knows? I mean, we had so many new discoveries, and yet, the textbooks still teach that everything is made of an atom.



Ah! Even when Uncle Albert thought he was wrong, he was right. His calculations predicted the existence of dark energy and an endlessly expanding universe, but he didn't like that (he was a 'Steady-State' guy), so he added his "cosmological constant" to correct his numbers. It turns out he was right all along. The universe is expanding, and accelerating its expansion.


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## Schrody (Mar 16, 2016)

Terry D said:


> Ah! Even when Uncle Albert thought he was wrong, he was right. His calculations predicted the existence of dark energy and an endlessly expanding universe, but he didn't like that (he was a 'Steady-State' guy), so he added his "cosmological constant" to correct his numbers. It turns out he was right all along. The universe is expanding, and accelerating its expansion.



Yes, I know he was right (like I said, we could've solved the dark energy problem decades ago), but I guess he just didn't like quantum mechanics and dark matter, but preferred "philosophically" more beautiful picture of a universe - it's static, and eternal. Except it is not. Inflation is a confirmed theory and because of it, the Universe will die in a Big Freeze. Hope you have a warm coat!  I respect Einstein (he truly is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, scientist that ever lived), but I can't forgive him the lack of vision. Yes, scientists rely on empirical proofs, but not every theory in science can be currently proved - that doesn't stop them to think, dream, to have a vision, even though they would need their whole life to prove it.  Ah, I am a dreamer.

EDIT: when I said Einie was wrong is some things I meant Steady State and such things


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## Blade (Mar 18, 2016)

How do you plant a billion trees a year? :scratch:With drones, of course. 

Planting a billion trees a year using drones

For those who find the advent of drones kind of spooky check this out. This could eradicate the effects of excessive harvesting in short order.:eagerness:

Also a good, brief article on transparent solar panels.

 Transparent solar panels


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## Schrody (Mar 20, 2016)

*Plastic eating microbes.*


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## Deleted member 56686 (Mar 20, 2016)

I still think recycling's still more practical :lol:


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## Schrody (Mar 20, 2016)

Not really


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## LeeC (Mar 20, 2016)

mrmustard615 said:


> I still think recycling's still more practical :lol:


That's the point most others made on social media.


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## Blade (Mar 21, 2016)

A short (2 min.) animated video about what went wrong with the Flint MI water supply.

 Flint water problem


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## Blade (Mar 22, 2016)

The continuing adventures of glacial melting. I sometimes thing that you are about as likely to figure all this out as to become world chess champion but this article strikes me as about as up to speed as you are going to get. _The Guardian _seems to have taken it upon themselves to be the global authority on climate change and it looks like they are doing a good job so far.

 Higher than expected sea level rise




			
				Posted article said:
			
		

> “If the ocean continues to accumulate heat and increase melting of marine-terminating ice shelves of Antarctica and Greenland, a point will be reached at which it is impossible to avoid large-scale ice sheet disintegration with sea level rise of at least several meters,” the paper states. “The economic and social cost of losing functionality of all coastal cities is practically incalculable.”



The danger here apparently is that the glaciers, rather than melting off at a predictable rate, will simply begin to collapse dumping billions of tons of ice into warmer oceans.


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## Schrody (Mar 22, 2016)

Nah, the sea levels won't rise for a couple of meters :lol: This ain't "Waterworld"


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## Deleted member 56686 (Mar 22, 2016)

I read somewhere that this year the global temperature was 1.5 degrees F warmer than the average temperature from 1937-1980. The scientists kind of sounded worried.


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## Blade (Mar 22, 2016)

mrmustard615 said:


> I still think recycling's still more practical :lol:



The problem is that most of the plastic entering the ocean is from countries like China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand etc. that have no proper garbage disposal systems let alone re-cycling. It would take years, if ever, for them to be able to curb the flow.:grey:



Schrody said:


> Nah, the sea levels won't rise for a couple of meters :lol: This ain't "Waterworld"





mrmustard615 said:


> I read somewhere that this year the global temperature was 1.5 degrees F warmer than the average temperature from 1937-1980. The scientists kind of sounded worried.



I think there are now a lot of people who are worried. The big hurdle here, at least in analysis, is that data on the ice shelves is quite scanty the further you back in time you go so it has been virtually impossible to establish long term norms. We don't really know how the ice/oceans will react to increased temperature. If the once permanently frozen glaciers disintegrate and lose their 'solid' structure vast quantities of ice could be ditched into warmer waters quite quickly.

There is a grim irony here in that climate change threatens fresh water shortages in many parts of the world.:-k


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## LeeC (Mar 22, 2016)

mrmustard615 said:


> I read somewhere that this year the global temperature was 1.5 degrees F warmer than the average temperature from 1937-1980. The scientists kind of sounded worried.


Sounds alarmist to me  Actually, between global warming and peak oil being on the more immediate horizon, we've got a double whammy that'll do more than rock the boat. Yet still we keep shuffling along leaving the consequences to our children's children.


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## Schrody (Mar 22, 2016)

Blade said:


> The problem is that most of the plastic entering the ocean is from countries like China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand etc. that have no proper garbage disposal systems let alone re-cycling. It would take years, if ever, for them to be able to curb the flow.:grey:
> 
> There is a grim irony here in that climate change threatens fresh water shortages in many parts of the world.



China is one of the biggest pollutant countries there is, and it's not taking any responsibility for it. To each its own, I just hope things don't change too drastically (because there will be drastic situations like extreme floods which will cause shortage on the food market), we need to save what can be saved. Then again, as I pointed in other thread - humans are not solely responsible for global warming (the Ozone layer is much thinner at the Antarctica or North Pole, don't remember which one, and there's not a single factory, cars, etc. Thing is, all the CO2 that was trapped in ice thousands of years ago is being released in the atmosphere right now, and it's not something that should worry anyone.), I believe that post glacial period is soon to be over, which will result in a new ice age (if it's true that the nature of an ice age is cyclical) in a several thousand, or ten thousands years in the future. Anyway, just my thoughts.


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## Phil Istine (Mar 22, 2016)

Schrody said:


> *Plastic eating microbes.*



Room for a chilling sci-fi story as the microbes escape and start developing a taste for other types of plastic.  It reminds me of a TV series in the 60s called "Doomwatch".


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## Blade (Mar 23, 2016)

Here is a report on research that indicates that both the volume of CO2 emitted and the rate of induction into the atmosphere are much higher than at any period in the history of the planet. The comparison is made to 56 million BC (Palaeacene - Eocene Thermal Maximum), the previous pinnacle of global warming, and finds that what is going on at present is multiples steeper in scope.

 Rate of CO2 emissions today compared to global climate history



> But the team argues that the scale of human-produced carbon emissions means that the lessons we could learn from the ancient event may actually have limited relevance.
> "We have effectively entered an era of a no-analogue state, which represents a fundamental challenge to constraining future climate projections," they write in their paper.


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## InstituteMan (Mar 23, 2016)

As I sit here suffering from seasonal allergies, I am reminded of a science story I heard on my local NPR station recently about how those high CO2 levels spur pollen production. An allergist from a local hospital explained that a typical pollen count these days is 3 or 4 times what used to be a high pollen day. My nose, eyes, and lungs agree that there's entirely too much pollen in the air right now.


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## LeeC (Mar 23, 2016)

My puzzlement is why more don't question the status quo? 




[click to enlarge]


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## 20oz (Mar 24, 2016)

http://arstechnica.com/information-...s-tay-ai-chatbot-after-she-turns-into-a-nazi/


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## -xXx- (Mar 24, 2016)

"There is *no such thing* as *bad student*, only *bad* teacher. Teacher say and *student *do." - Master Miyagi from The Karate Kid.

I <3 nature/nurture discussions.
oh, and AI.
i <3 AI.


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## Blade (Mar 24, 2016)

Apparently 2015 was a record year for investment in renewable energy with developing nations outdoing developed ones 55% to 45%. There is still a long way to go but at least there is some momentum in the right direction.

2015 a record year for renewables investment


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## Schrody (Mar 24, 2016)

Also, the hottest in the last several decades!


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## Blade (Apr 1, 2016)

Yet another report which ups the ante on melting ice sheets. These researchers believe that projected melting from Antarctica  has been greatly underestimated and that future melting will be triggered by higher atmospheric temperatures rather than erosion by seawater.

 Increased Antarctic melting


----------



## LeeC (Apr 1, 2016)

Blade said:


> Yet another report which ups the ante on melting ice sheets. These researchers believe that projected melting from Antarctica  has been greatly underestimated and that future melting will be triggered by higher atmospheric temperatures rather than erosion by seawater.
> 
> Increased Antarctic melting


Yes, I noticed that and many others. Too many don't/won't realize that our exploitation of habitat and effects on biodiversity are increasingly accelerating change that will leave us the losers. And no, I won't use this opportunity to get into another ecological explanation of the closed loop system our Earth is, because those that need to understand aren't interested. All life forms are subjective.

One of the reasons I promote books that further more objective understanding is so my grandson and beyond won't spit on my memory ;-) 

Seeing others that understand is heartening  Thank you.


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## LeeC (Apr 1, 2016)

I remember when the idea of global warming first caught on. For those interested Bloomberg published this history lesson the other day. 
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...g-chart-helped-uncover-climate-change-in-1959

I also remember those that went all out to play it down, just like the chemical industry did in attacking Rachel Carson over her book Silent Spring. Some of them are starting to come around which is hopeful.

"_It's easier to fool people than it is to convince them they have been fooled._" ~ Mark Twain


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## Schrody (Apr 11, 2016)

"A World Without Ice" is on my to-read list, I think it will be very interesting!


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## Blade (Apr 20, 2016)

The Greenland ice sheet melt seems to be off to an exceptionally early start this year.

 Early Greenland ice melt



			
				Posted article said:
			
		

> According to Polar Portal, which monitors all things ice-related in the Arctic, melt season kicks off when 10 percent of the ice sheet experiences surface melt. The previous record for earliest start was May 5, 2010.



As opposed to April 10 this year.


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## InstituteMan (Apr 20, 2016)

Blade said:


> The Greenland ice sheet melt seems to be off to an exceptionally early start this year.
> 
> Early Greenland ice melt
> 
> ...



Alas, this makes me glad to live about as far from an ocean as humanly possible in the US.


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## LeeC (Apr 20, 2016)

There will be ups and downs, but the pattern overall is clear enough for anybody that has an open mind. Being the subjective creatures we are though, dawning awareness is slow. 

Humorous in a way how we readily believe in imaginary things, yet can't see beyond our bubble until it's punctured ;-) 

Heartening to see more awareness


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## LeeC (Apr 20, 2016)

InstituteMan said:


> Alas, this makes me glad to live about as far from an ocean as humanly possible in the US.


Wasn't your area within the Western Interior Seaway. Of course that was a combination of plate tectonics and higher sea levels, but still there will be a lot of population shifts. Hate to imagine the issues of so many more people on a lot less land ;-)


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## Blade (Apr 22, 2016)

The European space agency has launched another satellite specifically designed to monitor the ice fields of Greenland. Hopefully we will be as good at doing something about the melt as we are at watching.:-k

 European Space Satellite - Greenland


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## Blade (Apr 25, 2016)

A bright side to increased CO2 in the atmosphere, given appropriate water and nutrients plants take advantage of the extra CO2 to produce more greenery.:thumbr:

 Greening of Earth

Also a 600 mile long coral reef has been discovered at the mouth of the Amazon River. I will let the discoverers explain why this was never noticed before.:scratch:

 Amazon River Reef


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## Schrody (Apr 25, 2016)

That's amazing! And they say there's nothing new to discover on Earth


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## LeeC (Apr 25, 2016)

Blade said:


> A bright side to increased CO2 in the atmosphere, given appropriate water and nutrients plants take advantage of the extra CO2 to produce more greenery.:thumbr:
> 
> Greening of Earth


 The other side of the coin being that plants will take up more water, reducing that for a burgeoning population that will be crowding onto reduced landmass because of higher oceans. There's a balance to everything in Nature ;-)

"_Probably the most visible example of unintended consequences, is what happens every time humans try to change the natural ecology of a place._"  ~  Margaret J. Wheatley


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## Schrody (Apr 27, 2016)

*First gene therapy successful against human aging*


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## Schrody (Apr 27, 2016)

The future is now.


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## Schrody (Apr 28, 2016)

*Scientists just captured the flash of light that sparks when a sperm meets an egg.
*


I guess you can say... we're conceived within a big bang


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## Schrody (May 8, 2016)

*Biotech Company Granted Ethical Permission To Attempt To Use Stem Cells To Reactivate The Brains Of The Dead *



... so this is how it begins ...


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## LeeC (May 8, 2016)

Schrody said:


> *Biotech Company Granted Ethical Permission To Attempt To Use Stem Cells To Reactivate The Brains Of The Dead *
> 
> 
> 
> ... so this is how it begins ...


The future is scary given our self-serving minds ;-)


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## Crowley K. Jarvis (May 8, 2016)

Holy crap!

If those are running experiments by the time I die, I will gladly donate my body to science as part of the 'zombie program!' x3


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## LeeC (May 8, 2016)

Crowley K. Jarvis said:


> Holy crap!
> 
> If those are running experiments by the time I die, I will gladly donate my body to science as part of the 'zombie program!' x3


Now you're really scaring me


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## Schrody (May 11, 2016)

*NASA just announced the discovery of 1,284 new alien planets *


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## LeeC (May 11, 2016)

Schrody said:


> *NASA just announced the discovery of 1,284 new alien planets *


Hmph, even rocket scientists can't write. Redundant/excess words are a sign of liking to hear oneself talk. This is as bad as the phrase I ran across, "His eyes looked at her longingly."


Sorry Schrody, couldn't help myself


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## Schrody (May 11, 2016)

Ha ha don't worry


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## Schrody (May 12, 2016)

*Future? No. Hyperloop.
*


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## Deleted member 56686 (May 12, 2016)

The only thing I'd be worried about is what would happen in some sort of accident. A sudden stop at 1200 km an hour wouldn't be pleasant to say the least.


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## Schrody (May 12, 2016)

You'd become a pancake at the speed of 1200 kmh  Unique experience


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## Blade (May 16, 2016)

This is a story on a recent find in what is now northern Florida of what may be the earliest human remains in North America. For some reason the results are disputed on the basis of inaccurate Carbon dating although I am not sure how that goes. In any case if humans came into the area from Asia and the remains are on the eat coast they must have been on the continent for a considerable amount of time before this site.

 Earliest Human Remains Site - North America - Florida

This sounds like old news but since it refers to April 2016 it is actually real news. A series of record hot months culminating in the hottest April ever globally.

 April 2016 hottest on record



			
				 Posted article said:
			
		

> Last month smashed the previous record for April by the largest margin ever, the data show.That makes it three months in a row that the monthly record was broken by the largest margin ever.
> But in terms of its departure from the 1951-1980 temperature average used by Nasa, April was equal with January 2016.


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## Schrody (May 17, 2016)

Carbon dating is only for dating up to 10 000 years, so obviously, if something's older, you would use another method


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## Schrody (May 17, 2016)

Have I ever told you we have our own Neanderthals? And no, I'm not referring to our politicians :lol:

Yes sir, in 1899, archaeologists found more than 800 fossil remains belonging to Neanderthals. We even have a Neanderthal Museum - *lookie*.


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## Deleted member 56686 (May 17, 2016)

I'm not a hundred percent sure but I believe the neanderthals may have originally settled in Eastern and Central Europe. For a while they were said to have existed with early humans.


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## Schrody (May 17, 2016)

mrmustard615 said:


> I'm not a hundred percent sure but I believe the neanderthals may have originally settled in Eastern and Central Europe. For a while they were said to have existed with early humans.



Not only did they coexisted with Homo Sapiens (we're its subspecies Homo Sapiens Sapiens), some scientists think they even mated! If anyone's interested I recommend this book:"Last Ape Standing: The Seven-Million-Year Story of How and Why We Survived"


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## Schrody (May 24, 2016)

*How was Stonehenge built? Find out here.*


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## Schrody (May 24, 2016)

The Universe is a magnificent place, where common laws of physics break down...

[video=youtube;0FsQ-v8Tec4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FsQ-v8Tec4[/video]


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## LeeC (May 24, 2016)

Interesting anomalies. On the other hand it's an indication of how little we actually know. We're like a child with a box of matches, transfixed by the flame. 

"_The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding._"  ~  Francis Bacon


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## Blade (May 26, 2016)

Schrody said:
			
		

> Carbon dating is only for dating up to 10 000 years, so obviously, if something's older, you would use another method :smile:



Apparently the method is good (according to Encyclopaedia Britannica) going back 50,000 years. It seems that getting an exact reading is a little tricky and depending on methodology and the lab used can be open to dispute. Generally when you see a story on European finds during the same era there is no dispute as to the timeline.  

http://www.britannica.com/science/carbon-14-dating


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## Schrody (May 27, 2016)

Blade said:


> Apparently the method is good (according to Encyclopaedia Britannica) going back 50,000 years. It seems that getting an exact reading is a little tricky and depending on methodology and the lab used can be open to dispute. Generally when you see a story on European finds during the same era there is no dispute as to the timeline.
> 
> http://www.britannica.com/science/carbon-14-dating



Actually, we were both right:

"The radiocarbon dating method is based on the fact that radiocarbon is constantly being created in the atmosphere by the interaction of cosmic rays with atmospheric nitrogen. The resulting radiocarbon combines with atmospheric oxygen to form radioactive carbon dioxide, which is incorporated into plants by photosynthesis; animals then acquire [SUP]14[/SUP]C by eating the plants. When the animal or plant dies, it stops exchanging carbon with its environment, and from that point onwards the amount of[SUP] 14[/SUP]C it contains begins to decrease as the [SUP]14[/SUP]C undergoes radioactive decay. Measuring the amount of [SUP]14[/SUP]C in a sample from a dead plant or animal such as a piece of wood or a fragment of bone provides information that can be used to calculate when the animal or plant died. The older a sample is, the less [SUP]14[/SUP]C there is to be detected, and because the half-life of [SUP]14[/SUP]C (the period of time after which half of a given sample will have decayed) is about *5,730 *years, the oldest dates that can be reliably measured by radiocarbon dating are around *50,000* years ago, although special preparation methods occasionally permit dating of older samples.

...

The half-life of a radioactive isotope (usually denoted by t1/2) is a more familiar concept than the mean-life, so although the equations above are expressed in terms of the mean-life, it is more usual to quote the value of [SUP]14[/SUP]C's half-life than its mean-life. *The currently accepted value for the half-life of [SUP]14[/SUP]C is 5,730 years. This means that after 5,730 years, only half of the initial [SUP]14[/SUP]C will remain; a quarter will remain after 11,460 years; an eighth after 17,190 years; and so on*."

From Wikipedia.


----------



## Bard_Daniel (May 27, 2016)

Woah. I'm not that versed in science and technology but this is some interesting stuff. Cool!


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## Schrody (Jun 9, 2016)

*New subatomic particle found*


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## Blade (Jun 13, 2016)

Here is a story on a very ancient constructed sit attributed to Neandertals. The site is in France and according to the article "Dating techniques showed that they were broken off 175,000 years ago." which would be long before human occupation of the area.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36381786* -*http://www.scientificamerican.com/a...and-no-one-knows-why/?WT.mc_id=SA_DD_20160526] 


Also a short video which I believe shows the entire site.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/video/ancient-sculpture-garden-was-built-by-neandertals/] 

At least no one can claim this is an ancient observatory. :thumbr:


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## Schrody (Jun 17, 2016)

It's happening: *Robot escapes laboratory*


----------



## Deleted member 56686 (Jun 17, 2016)

Well, I hope the policeman read him his Miranda rights at least :lol:


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## Schrody (Jun 17, 2016)

*This is cool*


----------



## Schrody (Jun 18, 2016)

18+





*Revolution in sex?*


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## Bard_Daniel (Jun 18, 2016)

Schrody said:


> *This is cool*



That's so awesome. COOL is right!


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## LeeC (Jun 21, 2016)

Wild Macaques in Thailand Have Entered Stone Age
http://www.sci-news.com/archaeology/macaques-thailand-stone-age-03944.html


Could be our replacement in the evolutionary chain of life, they can't do any worse ;-)


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## Schrody (Jul 4, 2016)

*It seems that Jupiter has its own Aurora Borealis... *


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## Schrody (Jul 10, 2016)

NASA discovered a planet in a trinary system, which means it orbits three stars. It's located 340 light years (just to give you some perspective, a light year is roughly 9.4 trillion kilometers or 5.8 trillion miles), so you can imagine how long would it take us to visit it. Once you're out there, you don't stay just for the tea, you stay for a dinner too. For instance, Sun is only eight light minutes away, and the Moon a light second. Temperature on the planet is cozy 1070 F or 580 C. Click *here* for more details.


----------



## Blade (Jul 14, 2016)

Here is a brief (1 min.) video about a tiny asteroid that doing a sort of companion dance with earth around the sun. Of no great importance I suppose but it a little disconcerting that it would suddenly pop up on our screen after having been overlooked for so long.

 Companion asteroid


----------



## Schrody (Jul 18, 2016)

*Scientists captured the pic of the black hole interior.*


----------



## Deleted member 56686 (Jul 18, 2016)

It looks, uh, black. :icon_cheesygrin:


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## Schrody (Jul 18, 2016)

No shit :mrgreen:


----------



## Blade (Jul 18, 2016)

Schrody said:


> No shit :mrgreen:



I think what he means is that it (the picture) is just a black rectangle and, in fact, not a picture of anything.:-k


----------



## Deleted member 56686 (Jul 18, 2016)

Yeah, yeah, what dy'a say about that, huh, huh? :tongue:


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## Schrody (Jul 18, 2016)

Blade said:


> I think what he means is that it (the picture) is just a black rectangle and, in fact, not a picture of anything.:-k



It's a joke, you can't take a pic of something you can't even see...


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## LeeC (Jul 18, 2016)

Schrody said:


> It's a joke, you can't take a pic of something you can't even see...


Oh my gosh, and here you had me imagining the pull into nothingness


----------



## Schrody (Jul 18, 2016)

LeeC said:


> Oh my gosh, and here you had me imagining the pull into nothingness



It's a nice thought. Sometimes, when I'm about to sleep, I think about drifting into dark abyss, I'm light, and surrounding is so peaceful...


----------



## Schrody (Jul 23, 2016)

*First womb transplant baby!*


----------



## Schrody (Aug 2, 2016)




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## Schrody (Aug 10, 2016)

*Did you know that the missing link is a fraud (which I somehow expected)? *


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## Terry D (Aug 10, 2016)

Schrody said:


> *Did you know that the missing link is a fraud (which I somehow expected)? *



Old news, Schrody. We've know for a long time that there is no one single 'missing link', but a slow, incremental development. It's not so much like individual links in a chain as it is a multitude of fibers in a rope; many of them overlapping or running parallel to one another. Strangely enough, though, that Piltdown Man skull looks a lot like Donald Trump.


----------



## Schrody (Aug 10, 2016)

I know it's old news (I just read about it), and the idea of missing link always seemed funny to me... The main questions is - they've known that it's a hoax for so long, then why did I read it in the encyclopedia as a kid (lazy writing/researching)? Misinforming is not fun at all.


----------



## Blade (Aug 10, 2016)

New evidence on an old puzzle. The 'ice free corridor' comes out as a highly unlikely route due to scant evidence for resources that could support human life.

 How humans populated North America


----------



## Schrody (Aug 18, 2016)

*Have scientists found a new force?*


----------



## Terry D (Aug 23, 2016)

NASA has just released 8,000 hi-res images from old Apollo missions. Find out more here.


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## Blade (Aug 23, 2016)

This is not news really but a short (3 min. 25 sec.) video that compares the glaciers in Greenland during the 1930's to those of today. It also demonstrates just how mountainous the island actually is.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/v...s-vanishing-glaciers/?WT.mc_id=SA_DD_20160823


----------



## Deleted member 56686 (Aug 23, 2016)

Blade; hate to break the news to you but your link isn't working.


----------



## Schrody (Aug 23, 2016)

Here's the link -* click*


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## Blade (Aug 23, 2016)

mrmustard615 said:


> Blade; hate to break the news to you but your link isn't working.



Thanks. Normally I would re-check it but sometimes I go on my merry way.:scratch: I think it is good now.


----------



## Schrody (Aug 23, 2016)

That's enough beers for you, mister! :lol:


----------



## Schrody (Aug 24, 2016)

I've been waiting this whole day: *ESO has confirmed existence of an exoplanet similar to Earth in the Alpha Centauri system! *This is big! Also, *announcement on YouTube.*


----------



## Terry D (Aug 24, 2016)

Not trying to be a downer, but I never understand why people get so excited about these planet discoveries. You still have a better chance of winning a lottery than of finding any sign of life on a planet orbiting 7M kilometers from a red dwarf.


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## Schrody (Aug 24, 2016)

I doubt we'll find any intelligent life there, but this is a huge discovery since this is the closest such exoplanet to us. Not everything is about finding an intelligent life, sometimes just life will do (bacteria's, etc.)


----------



## Terry D (Aug 24, 2016)

Schrody said:


> I doubt we'll find any intelligent life there, but this is a huge discovery since this is the closest such exoplanet to us. Not everything is about finding an intelligent life, sometimes just life will do (bacteria's, etc.)



I didn't mean intelligent life -- the likelihood of ever finding that is next to zero -- I just meant, it has become obvious that there are billions of planets out there, most stars probably have a few, so every discover isn't huge anymore. It's going to take much more than being the right size, being made out of rock, and _maybe_ having liquid water, to make such a discovery remarkable. This planet orbits a variable star (most red dwarfs are), so it's bathed in fluctuations in radiation, it is close enough to its star to be tidally locked (one side facing the star at all times the other in complete darkness), and there's no clue yet about its precession (wobble). 

Don't get me wrong, I believe there are probably planets with some form of life (although there isn't any scientific basis for that belief). I just get tired of these magazine article that try and make every new planet discovery a big deal. They aren't. The next 'big deal' in this field will be when they start to get good data on exoplanet atmospheres and pick up signs of oxygen. Short of that, it just another exoplanet. IMO


----------



## Schrody (Aug 24, 2016)

Maybe you're right, but I'm pretty excited  We should rejoice small steps to value the big ones!


----------



## Terry D (Aug 25, 2016)

*The universe draws a T-violation!* The reason why we only move one direction in time.


----------



## Schrody (Sep 10, 2016)

*Scientists found cure for bone healing *


----------



## Blade (Sep 10, 2016)

You would think that after all these years that battery explosions would not be an issue.

 Battery explosions - Samsung 7

The last line of the article is rather amusing.



> The phone was launched last month and has been otherwise generally well-received by consumers and critics.


:-k


----------



## Schrody (Sep 16, 2016)

That feeling when real science surpasses your technology of the future...

*We can create babies without men, claim scientists*


----------



## Deleted member 56686 (Sep 16, 2016)

I'm afraid to like that one. That sounds pretty scary.


----------



## Schrody (Sep 17, 2016)

mrmustard615 said:


> I'm afraid to like that one. That sounds pretty scary.



Progress is always scary. Heart transplants were once considered scary too.


----------



## Blade (Oct 23, 2016)

The usual news, September was the either the hottest or second hottest on record depending on how the calculations were done. There is an interesting link near the beginning of this article describing how the methodology of NASA (National Aeronautic and Space Administration) and NOAA ( National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) differ somewhat.

 Hot September​


----------



## Schrody (Oct 29, 2016)

I don't know how I missed this, but *Scientists May Have Just Discovered a Parallel Universe Leaking Into Ours
*


----------



## Schrody (Nov 9, 2016)

*A new paper claims our understanding of gravity is totally wrong*


----------



## JustRob (Nov 9, 2016)

Schrody said:


> *A new paper claims our understanding of gravity is totally wrong*



Well that's a downer ... or maybe it isn't. Now you have me totally confused.


----------



## Blade (Nov 9, 2016)

The construction of the James Webb space telescope is finished. It  has to undergo functional testing to prepare for launch in October 2018.

James Webb telescope completed


----------



## Schrody (Dec 8, 2016)

*Oregon Girl Invents 'Smart Bandage,' Wows Google *


----------



## Blade (Dec 20, 2016)

There is apparently a new world record for the oldest water ever discovered. This was found at a depth of 3 km. in a gold mine in north Ontario and is an estimated 2 billion years old.

Oldest water on Earth​


----------



## Blade (Jan 5, 2017)

I am not sure if this is science news but it certainly is environmental news. Washington state has blocked a coal export terminal that would have handled 44 million tons of coal a year. It looks like states have considerable power even if the federal level is indifferent.

 Washington state blocks coal terminal​


----------



## Blade (Jan 9, 2017)

I suppose this is an environmental story to come. Apparently an iceberg roughly the size of Long Island NY is going to detach itself from Antarctica. This will not only provide additional water for rising sea levels but also destabilize the local glacier formation and bring yet more ice closer to the open ocean.

 Ice shelf on the verge of collapse.

It is evident from such situations that no one really knows exactly what is going on or what will happen next and thus predictions for the future are suspect and probably understated.

Here is another article on the situation with a graphic and some pictures. It compares the potential iceburg as being about one third the size of Wales UK, I have also heard it refered to as the size of Prince Edward Island, Canada. In any case a monumental situation which may lead to more of the same.

 Ice shelf collapse 2

Apparently the crack in the Larsen C ice shelf has grown by 10 km. since Jan. 1 and needs only another 20 km. before it breaks loose.


----------



## Schrody (Jan 10, 2017)

*Sydney toddler Lucy Hinchion the youngest person to receive blood infusion from own umbilical cord
*


----------



## Blade (Jan 15, 2017)

From the "dangers you can't do much about" file. I come across stories once in awhile concerning microbial resistance but this one seems to be an extreme case.

Super resistant microbe 
[FONT=&Verdana]
Quote from article - "Antimicrobial susceptibility testing in the United States indicated that the isolate was resistant to 26 antibiotics," the researchers reported. In effect, the germ "was resistant to all available antimicrobial drugs,"[/FONT]


----------



## Blade (Jan 18, 2017)

And so it goes. 2016 is apparently has edged out 2015 as the warmest year on record. Of course there are various complications involved but still seeming to progress away from whatever normal was.

 2016 warmest year ever


----------



## Blade (Jan 20, 2017)

Update - Apparently the crack in the Larsen C ice shelf has grown by 10 km. since Jan. 1 and needs only another 20 km. before it breaks loose.

Iceberg near detachment


----------



## JustRob (Jan 21, 2017)

The British Antarctic Survey station Halley VI is also being closed over the winter because of a crack in the Brunt ice shelf.

Halley Research Station Antarctica to close for winter


----------



## Blade (Jan 23, 2017)

I occasionally come across articles which make a reference to mining as a prospective benefit of space exploration but rarely any reference to anything specific. In this case there is an asteroid which is not only loaded with Platinum and other precious metals but also passes close to the Earth in its orbit.

Platinum loaded asteroid



			
				JustRob said:
			
		

> The British Antarctic Survey station Halley VI is also being closed over the winter because of a crack in the Brunt ice shelf.



This one in a completely area than the other. If you match this stuff up with Arctic losses there is suddenly vast quantities of ice entering the oceans. Yikes!


----------



## Schrody (Jan 30, 2017)

*We might finally know what triggered living cells to evolve for the first time 
*


----------



## Schrody (Jan 31, 2017)

*Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe
*


----------

