Random Science Facts Thread!

[Whovian41110]

Okay, that booster is bigger than it looks on the live streams...

[magnemoe]

2 hours ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Excluding radio antennas and stuff.

Image for scale:

As the stage is about 30 ton dry with legs. the number of wheels is kind of overkill, on the other hand they probably did not have any other trailer of the length. 
For wind turbines they use special trailers setup including bolting an rear carriage on to the base of the mast. 

[p1t1o]

15 hours ago, Whovian41110 said:

Okay, that booster is bigger than it looks on the live streams...

Well theres a reason they didn't call it the "Falcon Quite Heavy"  XD

 

13 hours ago, magnemoe said:

As the stage is about 30 ton dry with legs. the number of wheels is kind of overkill, on the other hand they probably did not have any other trailer of the length. 
For wind turbines they use special trailers setup including bolting an rear carriage on to the base of the mast. 

Yeah if you look close, you can see about half the wheels are jacked up, not used.

[Green Baron]

This is much more than a random science fact but the Palaeo-thread was sadly closed. This is nothing less than a break in the view on human evolution.

Until shortly it was the general notion that behavioral modernity was unique to modern humans, homo sapiens sapiens or whatever you want to call the likes of us. The oldest art (wall paintings, figurines, music instruments) was dated to max. 42.000 bp and always found together or in a layer with stone tools that are attributed to modern humans (Aurignacien). Neandertals were seen as being on the way to modernity (Chatelperronien discussion for example) but not having quite arrived there.

Until shortly, and i (and others of course) have been waiting for this:

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6378/912

Cave art dated to >62000bp, before the arrival of modern humans in Spain.

Commentary:

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6378/852

Additional info: mussels, pigmented and with artificial holes for use as personal adornment, dated to 115,000bp.

http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/2/eaar5255

 

Haven't yet read all of the papers, will do later.

Edited February 23, 2018 by Green Baron

[magnemoe]

29 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

This is much more than a random science fact but the Palaeo-thread was sadly closed. This is nothing less than a break in the view on human evolution.

Until shortly it was the general notion that behavioral modernity was unique to modern humans, homo sapiens sapiens or whatever you want to call the likes of us. The oldest art (wall paintings, figurines, music instruments) was dated to max. 42.000 bp and always found together or in a layer with stone tools that are attributed to modern humans (Aurignacien). Neandertals were seen as being on the way to modernity (Chatelperronien discussion for example) but not having quite arrived there.

Until shortly, and i (and others of course) have been waiting for this:

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6378/912

Cave art dated to >62000bp, before the arrival of modern humans in Spain.

Commentary:

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6378/852

Additional info: mussels, pigmented and with artificial holes for use as personal adornment, dated to 115,000bp.

http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/2/eaar5255

 

Haven't yet read all of the papers, will do later.

WOW, if true pretty much all theories for an +60K year is junk. 
Had been a bit ironically if we got are from the Neanderthals.

 

[Green Baron]

The news find their way into pop science (automatic videos in the first link):

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/02/neanderthals-cave-art-humans-evolution-science/

More serious (pun intended):

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ancient-cave-paintings-clinch-the-case-for-neandertal-symbolism1/

 

My comment: there aren't many reasons any more to strictly distinguish between the abilities of so called modern humans and their former contemporaries the Neandertals in Europe and Asia. In Africa that distinction always was difficult anyway. Gradual differences are still there. Some step on the window board with "we must look for modernity in the common ancestors", which would be late erectusses and subspecies.

Anyway, the cultural explosion that was seen to have happened with modern humans 40.000 years ago now has been put to the historical archives of science.

Edited February 24, 2018 by Green Baron

[PB666]

https://speakingofgeoscience.org/2018/02/27/rethinking-the-hadean-evidence-of-earths-earliest-life/

[p1t1o]

The Voyager I probe, one of the fastest man-made object ever made, is moving roughly towards a star 10ish light years away at 15ish km/s,

That star, Gliese 445, is travelling towards us at 120ish km/s.

So at the moment our best bet for interstellar travel, by a long chalk, is to stay still and wait for them to come closer.

[Green Baron]

19 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

So at the moment our best bet for interstellar travel, by a long chalk, is to stay still and wait for them to come closer.

And still it'll need almost 200km/s to achieve orbit around that star (30 out of solar system, 120 to match speed, 30 to brake into orbit) or it'll be a quick flyby ...

[p1t1o]

7 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

And still it'll need almost 200km/s to achieve orbit around that star (30 out of solar system, 120 to match speed, 30 to brake into orbit) or it'll be a quick flyby ...

Well, it is moving toward the star at the moment, but its closest approach will be 1.7 light years...

Though by that time, the star will be less than half its current distance away from Earth.

[Green Baron]

Oh, sorry, my bad. I didn't write that i meant a hypothetical probe launched towards Gliese 445, not Vger.

[p1t1o]

28 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

Oh, sorry, my bad. I didn't write that i meant a hypothetical probe launched towards Gliese 445, not Vger.

lol @ "Vger"

 

[StrandedonEarth]

How close will Gliese 445 be at its closest approach to Sol?

[PB666]

12 hours ago, p1t1o said:

The Voyager I probe, one of the fastest man-made object ever made, is moving roughly towards a star 10ish light years away at 15ish km/s,

That star, Gliese 445, is travelling towards us at 120ish km/s.

So at the moment our best bet for interstellar travel, by a long chalk, is to stay still and wait for them to come closer.

Got a power supply? With a tiny 100,000 Ve ION drive and a small amount of Xenon we could get that into the 50ish km/second range (over 30 years).

Gliese will come and will go, but it will never approach a distance where 15ish km/sec would be useful to transit.

[Green Baron]

@StrandedonEarth: about 3.5 ly in roughly 45.000 years. From a graphic on Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gliese_445 but without citation ...

A take on calculation of close encounters: https://arxiv.org/abs/1003.2160
 

Edit: Gliese 445 is HIP 57544 in the arxiv link.

Edited March 7, 2018 by Green Baron

[MinimalMinmus]

My favorite one is from "What if...?"

What's the brightest:

a. A H-bomb pressed against your eyeball

b. Betelgeuse's supernova, one AU away

Answer: b is ONE BILLION times brighter

Speaking of which:

Betelgeuse is actually about 100,000 times less dense than air ASL (source: WP)

Unlike what's commonly said, all visible stars in the night sky are still alive today. (source)

Edited March 8, 2018 by MinimalMinmus

[p1t1o]

Humans, as well as most animals, are toroidal.

[Green Baron]

And mouth and anus switch during early individual development

 

Amelia Earhart

paving a path for women's rights, first woman who crossed the Atlantic solo, disappeared 1937 over the Pacific together with Navigator Fred Noonan, trying to fly around the world along the equator.

It is assumed that her plane ran out of fuel and they had to go down short before a refueling stop. The two had an appearance in one of the Star Trek Voyager, where the storytellers had them kidnapped by aliens and brought to the other side of the Galaxy.

------

Bones, found 1941 on a nearby atoll where attributed to a male individual. The bones have been scrutinized anew with more sophisticated techniques and the result is: It was Earhart (99%) and she apparently lived on for a few weeks after the accident.

http://journals.upress.ufl.edu/fa/article/view/525/519

Also, a little insight in skeletal anatomy and analysis ;-)

Edited March 9, 2018 by Green Baron

[p1t1o]

5 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

And mouth and anus switch during early individual development

 

Amelia Earhard

paving a path for women's rights, first woman who crossed the Atlantic solo, disappeared 1937 over the Pacific together with Navigator Fred Noonan, trying to fly around the world along the equator.

It is assumed that her plane ran out of fuel and they had to go down short before a refueling stop. The two had an appearance in one of the Star Trek Voyager, where the storytellers had them kidnapped by aliens and brought to the other side of the Galaxy.

------

Bones, found 1941(?) on an nearby atoll where attributed to a male individual. The bones have been scrutinized anew with more sophisticated techniques and the result is: It was Earhart (99%) and she apparently lived on for a few weeks after the accident.

http://journals.upress.ufl.edu/fa/article/view/525/519

Also, a little insight in skeletal anatomy and analysis ;-)

Do they still think her remains were eaten by Citizen Snips crabs? (CRAAAAAABS!) 

Edited March 9, 2018 by p1t1o

[Green Baron]

Yep.

[KG3]

2 hours ago, p1t1o said:

Do they still think her remains were eaten by Citizen Snips crabs? (CRAAAAAABS!) 

That's a serious case of crab!

[NSEP]

Research i did in biology class has shown that washing your hand with no soap isn't very effective for murdering innocent bacteria.

[MinimalMinmus]

1 hour ago, KG3 said:

That's a serious case of crab!

Oh, that's a NOPEcrab, nothing too bad, but just to be on the safe side I'm gonna nuke them from orbit.

[p1t1o]

8 minutes ago, NSEP said:

Research i did in biology class has shown that washing your hand with no soap isn't very effective for murdering innocent bacteria.

Soap doesnt murder them either, it just washes them off.

FunFact^TM: Barring any kind of weird infection, hands are by far more dirty than genitals. If just going #1 its far more hygienic to wash hands before going, washing them after makes little difference as your hands come away cleaner.

[Green Baron]

21 hours ago, KG3 said:

That's a serious case of crab!

Yeah, and apparently a quite curious and clever one, judging from what it is up to ... :-)