Science News Thread (for articles that don't relate to ongoing discussions)

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Weight of W boson might require adjustment to the Standard Model 

 

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/w-boson-particle-mass-standard-model-physics

 

 

(Temporary Note to Mods and Forumites - I've been posting my science news links to the 'Questions that don't' thread... But thinking about it, we might want a science news article thread to both keep from sidlining questions or losing the info that some might find interesting. 

If there is an existing thread, please merge) 

[Gargamel]

2 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

 

(Temporary Note to Mods and Forumites - I've been posting my science news links to the 'Questions that don't' thread... But thinking about it, we might want a science news article thread to both keep from sidlining questions or losing the info that some might find interesting. 

I’ve been doing the opposite and having the same thoughts.    This is a good thread for articles that won’t get a lot of replies, but aren’t questions either.  

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

An interesting (and very technical talk) about the movement of ancient peoples as seen through the lens of genetic sequencing:

 

 

A few excerpts:

• 'Modern' Humans are not distinct from Neanderthals and Denisovans - and Cro Magnons and Out of Africa people are not 'the true humans' - rather we are all mixtures of 'Ancient' and 'Modern' Human lineages which interbred over generations.
• The spread of Anatolian farmer-culture wasn't the latest significant replacement event in the populations of Europe or Asia (Farmers didn't entirely out-compete pre-existing hunter-gatherer populations and then hold on to develop the dominant culture)
• The people who built Stonehenge are not likely the people who later (and currently) populate the British Isles
• A (likely the first) Steppe population dominated Northern and Western Europe, parts of South and Central Asia and moved on to the Americas
• Native Americans have ancestry that is related to Northern and Central (North) Europeans via the Steppe group - and also a distinct, ancient 'pulse' of DNA more closely related to Aboriginal and Papua New Genean people in the Central and Southern parts of the Americas - information if true which could form impetus for new archaeological studies.
• Clovis people did extend to the Southern-most parts of South America - but there was a subsequent 'replacement event' bringing in cultures unrelated to the Clovis

Edited April 10, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

The people who built Stonehenge are not likely the people who later (and currently) populate the British Isles

So, even then they were thought as stonepunk freaks.

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

The spread of Anatolian farmer-culture wasn't the latest significant replacement event in the populations of Europe or Asia (Farmers didn't entirely out-compete pre-existing hunter-gatherer populations and then hold on to develop the dominant culture)

Exactly my maternal grandfather.
Came from the forest area of Central Russia, from the region originally populated by Ugro-Finnish Meryan ethnos (former hunters-gatherers),
which had been culturally Russified by the Slavic agricultural expansion from early medieval till XIX century,
from the village originally founded by Ugro-Finnish Estonian migrants, but populated by the local Russian people (of mostly Slavic, partially Meryan origin),
personally looking a Russian with Meryan admixture,
beloging to the purely agricultural Russian culture, but being mostly hunters-gatherers due to bad climate and soil.

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

A (likely the first) Steppe population dominated Northern and Western Europe, parts of South and Central Asia and moved on to the Americas

Yeah, it's a lot of post-steppe Goths among WASPs. They speak English with Deutsch accent.

As the Indians have never been to Europe till XV century. They splitted in Kazakhstan/Siberia.

 

[kerbiloid]

Fungi can talk to each other by electricity.

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.211926

Spoiler

Next time:
The researchers have spent many hours in fungi talks, and now understand the fungi language. It stays unknown if the fungi do.

[steve9728]

4 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Fungi can talk to each other by electricity.

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.211926

  Hide contents

Next time:
The researchers have spent many hours in fungi talks, and now understand the fungi language. It stays unknown if the fungi do.

Fungi: "In this bundle of currents you have at least 5 different grammatical errors"

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

7 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Fungi can talk to each other by electricity.

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.211926

  Hide contents

Next time:
The researchers have spent many hours in fungi talks, and now understand the fungi language. It stays unknown if the fungi do.

So plants hooked up to the myceliumWeb could be sending secret messages? 

Spoiler

(not entirely joking: the latest book I read about mycelium and fungi do suggest that plants can and do communicate with each other via chemical transfer through mycelial networks - but given how intimate the relationship between roots and mycelium are... The electrical communication might be an included service) 

 

[kerbiloid]

46 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

myceliumWeb

Fungi from Yuggoth occupying the orbital communication netwotk.

[StrandedonEarth]

2 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

So plants hooked up to the myceliumWeb could be sending secret messages? 

You've heard of the Dark Web. Now we've discovered the Dirt Web

[Vanamonde]

Articulated dinosaur leg! With meaty bits! Well, the meaty bits have turned to stone, of course, but they're still evident! 

https://www.zmescience.com/science/scientists-find-well-preserved-dinosaur-fossil-linked-to-asteroid-strike-070422/

[darthgently]

30 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

Articulated dinosaur leg! With meaty bits! Well, the meaty bits have turned to stone, of course, but they're still evident! 

https://www.zmescience.com/science/scientists-find-well-preserved-dinosaur-fossil-linked-to-asteroid-strike-070422/

I wonder if it got coated with hot ash like the victims of Vesuvius back in ancient Greece, and so preserved the form of the flesh.  Veddy interestink

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

5 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

Articulated dinosaur leg

That is really cool!  Plus it grossed out my wife

[steve9728]

When the teacher in one class in primary school was talking about dinosaurs being lizard-like things

Me: Teacher, is there a possibility that these guys were furry like cats and dogs?

Teacher: Are you going to say ammonites are actually quite delicious like last time?

Me: nods*

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Neptune experiencing "Global Cooling"

Neptune is cooling down and scientists don't know why | Space

 

[HebaruSan]

'Oumuamua was not the first:

https://www.livescience.com/first-interstellar-object-detected

Quote

The object, a small meteorite measuring just 1.5 feet (0.45 meter) across, slammed into Earth's atmosphere on Jan. 8, 2014, after traveling through space at more than 130,000 mph (210,000 km/h)

[...]

That 2019 study argued that the wee meteor's speed, along with the trajectory of its orbit, proved with 99% certainty that the object had originated far beyond our solar system — possibly "from the deep interior of a planetary system or a star in the thick disk of the Milky Way galaxy," the authors wrote. But despite their near certainty, the team's paper was never peer-reviewed or published in a scientific journal, as some of the data needed to verify their calculations was considered classified by the U.S. government

[...]

This confirmation retroactively makes the 2014 meteor the first interstellar object ever detected in our solar system, the memo added. The object's detection predates the discovery of 'Oumuamua — a now-infamous, cigar-shaped object that is also moving far too fast to have originated in our solar system — by three years, according to the USSC memo.

(That's 58 km/s for us KSP players, but it's not clear whether that was Earth-relative or Sun-relative, or from which angle it hit us.)

Edited April 11, 2022 by HebaruSan

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

This is cool:

 

 

Using sound waves to levitate beads and simulate clumping interactions and spin dissolution in free-falling aggregated asteroids

 

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/rubble-asteroid-space-rock-levitate-sound-waves

 

[StrandedonEarth]

The science of modern vehicle manufacture (had to phrase it to fit this thread somehow....)

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

New data shows accretion may not be the only way planets form:

A newly discovered planet renews debate about how some giant worlds form | Science News

Quote

The protoplanet, nine times the mass of Jupiter, is too far away from its star to have formed by accreting matter piece by piece, images suggest. Instead, the massive world probably formed all at once in a violent implosion of gas and dust, researchers report April 4 in Nature Astronomy.

 

10 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

The science of modern vehicle manufacture (had to phrase it to fit this thread somehow....)

 

You can catch a few of the edits from place to place... but I had a hard time believing some of that wasn't CG.  (The flying through the presses parts).  Either way (and even if) that was cool.

[StrandedonEarth]

Yeah, I saw the edits. It claimed to be a continuous drone flight, but it never claimed one take or no edits. Going through the presses? I got some SW:AotC vibes there, but I don’t think it was CGI, Obviously management knew it was flying though and may have slowed down or paused some ops briefly, as well as telling staff to ignore the drone flying through. Definitely some cool flying there. 

[kerbiloid]

19 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

The science of modern vehicle manufacture

01:00..01:10
"Hey, somebody! Call the repair brigade and the janitors. This stupid thing again smokes and drops hot metal scrap on the floor!"

"And finally... KILL THAT %$#%$ng CAMERA DRONE!!! It already got me by flying where the machines are trying to work."

***

00:50
"Why do we still need to push the hot metal by hands with a stick? When will that robotic pusher be fixed?
Is that man at 00:17 the only one who is doing that? Where are his co-workers again? Standing at 00:51 and watching how the conveyor belt is running? Their names, please, by the end of the shift."

"Why do just four or five of twenty people at 01:38 are doing something with the cars, while others are hanging around, chatting, and hoping that the drone is flying too fast to let me see that.
Does anybody know what are all those people doing there?"

"Is the protective helmet wearing arbitrary in our plant? Let alone the masks.
Oh, I remember that guy at 01:53, he has a special permission to take off the helmet when he wishes that...
... bur those ones at 01:55 don't. Nice hairdo, btw, it would be pity if something falls on it."

"Oh, our design staff at 02:00. As always, standing at the board with busy faces and inventing a triangular door like the last time they did.
Somebody, tell them that a blue napkin, hanging from the belt, was a part of our corporative dress code two months ago...
... No, wait. Are they car washers like their colleagues at 02:04? Then what are they discussing when there is a whole lot of unwashed cars waiting for them?!"

"Are those two at 02:07 helping the worker to screw?...
And why is the second worker without the yellow jacket? Who is his boss, remind me?"

"And why is that guy at 02:09 just standing at watching at others' work?
Is his shift finished? Then why is he still there? Or does he have no his own work to do?"

"Are you kidding? At 02:13 every next man screws up the yellow jacket and the helmet in a mechanical workshop?
Maybe just let everybody walk there in a T-shirt and beach slippers?"

"02:20.  I understand, all those people standing and walking are required for the moral support of the car storehouse working.
But can they at least stand in line with slogans and clap their hands?"

"So, colleagues... As we have just seen, of a hundred of people in our fabric building, maybe ten is doing something useful or at least looking like that.
That's why I still insist that we need to keep automating our production as much as possible. Because only robots will be working instead of looking."

Edited April 18, 2022 by kerbiloid

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

6 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Why do we still need to push the hot metal by hands with a stick

Grin - I saw that too, and it was decidedly anachronistic compared to everything else. 

I suspect he's the only 'worker'.  Everyone else are supervisors or roboticists 

[kerbiloid]

14 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I suspect he's the only 'worker'. 

I am just sure of that.

Others are just chatting, meditating, and walking.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

The science behind a good relationship:

Crack that code and you win!

Mathematical Formula Reveals the Secret to Lasting Relationships (businessinsider.com)

 

[kerbiloid]

Another, more simpler and accurate, multi-parametric  mathematical model of the lasting relationships.

Allows to operate with more measurable values than "mud".

 

Just the classic logistic function (hyperbolic tangent with initial offset).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_function

Describes the saturation process of a market, of a solution, of another process with asymtotic saturation "what's that?" → "want moar!" → "I'm full up!",
or in this specific case "who are you?" → "just married!" → "I'm full up with this crap!"

In case of relationships, the Y-axis parameter is in [0.0; 1.0] range means, how much full up you are with exactly this particular sort of the partner's crap.

Any measurable parameter can be substituted on the X-axis, and its particular set of coefficients calculated.

Say "amount of her flasks in bathroom", "amount of his unpaired socks in bedroom", "minutes to wait until she gets dressed", "number of his beer cans per week", "minutes of her phone chatting per day", "minutes of his staying at workplace when I know that he is with that ugly /who care/", "money she spends on her useless stuff", "money he spends on his useless stuff", etc.

So, a superposition of the saturation charts defines the total saturation of relationships between these two jerks.

When the total saturation gets saturated, the divorce becomes real, as a catastrophe in mathematical sense.

Quote

A mathematical catastrophe is a point in a model of an input-output system, where a vanishingly small change in the input can produce a large change in the output.

On the other hand, as we can see, this shape of curve looks very close to the classic hysteresis^*) curve.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hysteresis

^*) And not in sense of not only in sense of their hysterical attacks ^**).

^**) But mostly.

That's because after they are full up, they may divorce, have a rest, then start missing, and begin a new cycle of the _masochistic process.

The divorce can be not necessary juridical, but technical. 
Like a fincancial default. And here again the logistic nature of the process appears.

Having calculated these coefficients, one can use the equation system for calculating the "mud", considering it as the Y-axis value we used.

We can also see a thermodynamic process diagram here.

Spoiler

That's not just a coincidence.

That's a diagram of heat produced by their b-hurt.

Edited April 19, 2022 by kerbiloid

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Planetary Decadal Survey out.  Article:

Ice giants and ocean worlds: New report lays out planetary exploration road map of the future - CNN

Quote

The planetary decadal survey recommends the first dedicated Uranus Orbiter and Probe as the next large NASA mission. The spacecraft would conduct an orbital tour of the ice giant during flybys and deliver a probe to explore the atmosphere of the seventh planet from the sun. And a launch in 2031 or 2032 "is viable," according to the authors...

Looking for evidence of life on Saturn's moon, Enceladus, should be the second priority for NASA, according to the report