Beamer

Yeah, I thought the same thing. It doesn't sound like they used any modern or high tech methods. Just cultivate a virus in a dish and add a bacteria, it's something they could have done decades ago. Must be one of those "everyone thought somebody else had already figured that out" things

"Perseverance finds Light saber on Mars, the Jedis are coming!" Actually, it's the first sample container dropped by Perseverance https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-perseverance-rover-deposits-first-sample-on-mars-surface

First discovery of an organism that lives on a primary food source of viruses: https://newatlas.com/science/first-virovore-eats-viruses/

Jupiter, the bringer of jollity. Aside from being ginormous, I like that we have one of them all the way out whereas most solar systems seem to gather that type as close to the star as possible. I think it's quite possibly that the configuration we have is highly conductive, if not an almost necessity to create the sort of stable environment that allows life to evolve. Also, I just really like the word 'jollity'!

I always find it useful to make such numbers a bit more understandable by making them... well, smaller They've been in service for 54 years, so that means it's about 6.5 flights per minute, 24/7. On average for the past 50 years every 10 seconds one took off somewhere in the world, (and one landed somewhere else, hopefully). It is pretty stunning indeed. I don't know what the average flight time is but it's a safe bet to say that there are more than a 1000 of them somewhere up in the air at most times of the day. Edit: just noticed the "as of 2013" part so the numbers are some 15% higher still, but in the ballpark

Yesterday was the 15th anniversary of the death of one of the greatest pianists to ever walk the Earth, This tune has always been one of my favourites. Apologies for the fact that the video shows an ad for a transcript website, the only recordings I can find of this with video have absolutely horrible sound quality, but I'll list them in a spoiler if you want to see the big man's hands beat the laws of physics.

That's what politics looks like, and that's what you are really talking about there I think. The science is what happens after the shouting matches have been done and the funding has been established. Perhaps Hossenfelder is just too much of a politician for my taste. Give me a video that explains what <idea X> is and where it works better than <idea Y> and I'll gobble it up, I'm just not very interested in watching the shouting matches. That would probably be different if I had an actual bone in the fight What are the facts? Again and again and again – what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what “the stars foretell”, avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable “verdict of history” – what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? (Robert A. Heinlein, from "Time Enough for Love")

First a small disclaimer, I haven't gotten around to watching the above video yet, I base my commentary on a couple dozen videos I've seen of her over the years - they tend to pop up in my YT suggestions. I welcome poking. I'm not a participant, I'm just an outside observer, I have nothing to gain or lose whichever side turns out to be right. But I have yet to see any of her videos that even try to convince me of the merits of what she thinks is right. All I see is her trying to convince me that other people's ideas are wrong. It's not me she needs to convince, it's the majority of physicists in the relevant fields she needs to convince, and so far they don't seem to be. I don't find that surprising if your main message seems to be "You're all wrong". To take MOND as an example, I found the wiki page did a better job of convincing me the idea has merit than any of the mentions I've seen in Hossenfelder's videos. Don't get me wrong, I do think the idea is worth exploring, I just don't think the tone of her kind of science communication is helping that cause. Trying to convince people your ideas are better because theirs suck is not a good way to go about anything, and not a constructive voice in my book. In my own work, if you can show me how it works, and why that makes it better than what we have, I'll welcome it with open arms. But if you come along and say "We need to switch all our efforts to this unproven system because the one we have isn't 100% perfect", and manage to sound slightly indignified at the mere notion that others might not agree with that, the best you're going to get from me is an amused smile and a hard no. I would imagine it goes that way in any situation where you are trying to convince others that you are right, because that's just how people are wired.

Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but aren't they basically saying "Let's do away with this particle we cannot directly observe but have strong indirect observational data for, and replace it with this particle we just made up"? Have they even managed to discount DM, or are they still stuck at the "We still need it but we managed to reduce it to only 20% of the total mass of the universe" stage? I've seen a lot of Madame Hossenfelder's videos posted here lately and I'll come right out and say it: I don't like them much. Every single in-depth video I've seen of her (not counting the "this month's news" style ones) have a strong undertone of "They are getting all the grants and I am not, it's not FAIR!" When I see her smack-talk the likes of Michio Kaku for popularizing string theory I think to myself: Hang on, this guy has been researching and promoting this idea since before you were born, it's not like he's "jumping on the bandwagon", you're basically blaming him for being too good at his job. I don't buy the whole "Scientists are looking at the wrong thing" argument. Scientists are looking at the most promising theories, and they don't get to decide where the public's money goes. If you want more money going to your pet projects, do a better job at promoting them. Perhaps read a few pages from Mr Kaku's book, he knows how that stuff works.

On the subject of Lambda-CDM, another mystery solved thanks to Gaia data. It turns out the anomaly of the Milky Way's plane of satellites is just a matter of the old "even a broken clock is right twice a day": https://phys.org/news/2022-12-cosmological-enigma-milky-satellite-galaxies.html

Well, you know, Internet fora... I don't think any physicist considers Lambda-CDM a complete theory, they just don't want to replace it with something that is less complete and doesn't even solve the problems that LCDM has, and that's understandable. Whenever I hear someone complain that LCDM "doesn't work" for some observational data, I am reminded of Gall's law (arguably more popular in my line of work than in physics, but it's quite universal IMO): “A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked.” Of course you can say MOND is trying to do exactly that, but they clearly aren't at the point yet where the system is complex enough to rival with LCDM/GR in terms of observational predictions, and AFAIK that goes for all alternative proposals. A lot of these alternative proposals are designed specifically around the shortcomings of LCDM. To me that doesn't seem like a good way to go about it. LCDM describes a lot of things we do know, and fails to explain some things we don't know. If you want to propose an alternative, it's probably a good idea to make sure it can at least describe the things we do know, and not just provide an explanation for the things we don't know. Otherwise, you're probably better off trying to extend the LCDM model rather than coming up with something that rejects it. A lot of the 'shouting contests' in physics boil down to funding of course, and the way that is done nowadays is to a large extent driven by the nature of the post-internet world. In the old days, no matter how hard you shouted, the only ones who would hear it were your colleagues in the field who read your research papers. It wouldn't appear in the science section of the Saturday edition of your favourite printed newspaper until you had managed to convince a considerable portion of those colleagues. Nowadays all you need is a youtube account and a call to Curiosity Stream or Raid Shadow Legends for the sponsoring, and all the world will know about your ideas and have opinions about it. That's good for people like me, who don't work in the field but like to follow it as a 'hobby', but among the professionals it often seems to lead to some unsavoury discussions and animosities.

I think it's an elegant solution to a number of problems which immediately suggests the ability for observational predictions. That gives it an edge to just about... 99% of all quantum related theories? I mean people are still talking about string theory and many worlds, which not only have failed to satisfy the latter half of that statement, but (depending on who you ask) actually state that they are inherently untestable. I'm sure there's a lot of work to be done before they get to that point (and then observations might show it's incorrect) but at least it's not principally impossibly right out of the gate.

Breaking news: Marketing Drones were always right, sum of everything is not necessarily 100% - Physicists Rewrite a Quantum Rule That Clashes With Our Universe (OK not exactly breaking, originally printed on September 26th on Quanta Magazine, but reprinted yesterday on wired.com to a presumably larger audience).

2 probable water worlds found, Kevin Costner rejoices: https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/12/scientists-revisit-kepler-findings-learn-two-planets-are-water-worlds/

Ars has an interesting interview with Moriba Jah, a foremost expert on space debris: https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/12/space-debris-expert-orbits-will-be-lost-and-people-will-die-later-this-decade/

Honestly, when I saw that crew list my first thought was "If they have a sense of humour they will call it the Golgafrincham Ark Fleet Ship B." All in all I think it's not that bad. The purpose of the guy who pays for it was to get artists up there. As soon as you put 1 or 2 knowledgeable scientists in the mix, science will be the topic of talk from start to end. If you want the best artsy impressions, you need to keep the science nerds out of the cabin I think. TBH I'm somewhat surprised Mr Everyday wasn't considered too nerdy for this crew, but I sometimes forget he's both a photographer and musician too.

To be fair, that's kind of his shtick isn't it? Hence the 'everyday' part. He's an armchair rocket scientist (as many of us are too I imagine), but he doesn't pretend to be anything more than that. Also, I've seen the rest of the proposed crew, and he's probably the most knowledgeable person on that trip The rest is DJs, actors, singers and fashion giants. According to one of Scott's recent videos he was too late sending in a required presentation, so that's on him. If you can't even follow the rules/schedule of the selection process then it's not so strange you don't get the ticket.

Considering the average readership of The Sun, I'm not sure if that counts as propaganda. It may just be true

Mars not so dead after all: Geophysical evidence for an active mantle plume underneath Elysium Planitia on Mars [nature.com], or, as the more popular press likes to present it: Mars May Have Active Volcanoes, Adding New Promise to Search for Extraterrestrial Life [time.com]. Edit: It's funny how those titles go... Geophysicist: "Well we basically found Mars is geologically alive" - Nature.com "Evidence found for recent geologic activity on Mars", Time.com: "Chances for life on Mars increase.", MSN.com: "Life on Mars?", The Sun: "The Martians are coming!"

The old man still coming up with surprises, despite the sensations around that flashy new upstart: Hubble detects ghostly glow surrounding our solar system. Research paper links: Astrophysical Journal Letters or The Astronomical Journal

The days that was considered a corny joke are long gone if you'll excuse me for saying so. Just have a look at its wiki page

It was originally slated for 2 years, so they were already on overtime.

NASA's ICON went silent, a reboot didn't work (and we all know that means bad news): https://gizmodo.com/nasa-icon-space-weather-satellite-malfunction-1849868834

Didn't like the film, but I liked that scene, except it went bad again at the end when, despite being in a magnetic field strong enough to spaghettify her, she somehow manages to 'materialize' a circular saw and spin it up. Imagine the currents in that thing when it starts to spin. Spinning metal in a multi-Tesla magnetic field, bad idea terminator! When I was in Uni in the early 90s I had a side job cleaning some of the University buildings to pay for my tuition. I had to clean some interesting buildings, forensic DNA labs, physics labs full of those tables with intricate laser/lens/mirror setups, frosted oxygen flasks steaming in room temperature, Silicon Graphics workstations around every corner, a veritable wonderland for a science and computer nerd like me. It included some labs with high powered electromagnets. Of course they had to be turned off when the people left the lab, but the huge array of warning labels on the door always made me a little nervous. The rules stated you always had to leave keys, wallets and any other metal or magnetized objects outside all the same, just in case someone forgot to flick a switch when they left

There is no such thing as infinite delta v. Plants are made for 95% (or more) out of CO2 (material) and sunlight (energy to convert said material). So you have to drag along carbon and oxygen to grow your plants. You also have to drag along energy to create said sunlight, since you don't have to go all that far for the variant that comes from the actual sun to be too weak to allow for photosynthesis. Funnily enough, carbon and oxygen are the main components of rocket fuel (or 'reaction mass', for those who insist on the somewhat silly semantics of referring to oxygen as oxidizer). So this is no different from your ISRU question. Again you're dragging along a refinery, this time it just happens to be organic instead of mechanical. The answer therefor is also the same, it is more efficient to refine your fuel at home and leave the refinery behind.