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

[steve9728]

11 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

The thing which I don't understand, is why call a broth "tea".

I think pretty a while about this and asked some friend. 

Well, the Butter Tea on the plateau really have tea leaves in there. Where I went to is the other side of Nepal - Tibet. Locally, because of decades of infrastructure, a lot of food from places outside the highlands has become quite popular in many local cities and small counties where lorry drivers stop over. Especially Sichuan cuisine, which is represented by its spiciness and high calorie content. This piece is basically most popular for the food habits of the Han Chinese culture, mixed with a bit of halal food culture from the Muslims in Xinjiang. They're using the term 'soup' to describe broth rather than tea.

The first thing that comes to mind when describing broth as "tea" is the "Bak kut teh" served by the Minnan people in the southeast of China and the Chinese in Malaysia and Singapore in Southeast Asia. I asked a friend of mine from Fujian, and he said that it is a custom to call the soup made from Chinese herbs "tea". And that thing apart from the pork ribs, there are also a lot of Chinese herbs in the soup, so this broth is called tea.

Add: The Mongolians are the ones who peel off the boiled beef with a knife and then pour on the separately brewed tea, then eat it together. In a sense whether it is a tea or broth I think is indeed controversial.

Edited January 13, 2023 by steve9728

[magnemoe]

On 1/10/2023 at 10:40 PM, Beamer said:

Starship Full Stack for size...

Because when you're talking about the latest wind turbines, a banana just won't do. (Note: image not meant to represent actual turbine blade profile, just the length of 128 meter)

https://newatlas.com/energy/h260-18mw-biggest-wind-turbine/

 

Size is even more important for offshore wind as maintenance is much harder wile you don't have the size limits of roads. 

[Beamer]

Witness a once in a 10 thousand (or more) year event, the definition of a new epoch: When exactly did the Anthropocene start? [www.theguardian.com]

Quote

Exactly where and when did the Anthropocene begin? Scientists are attempting to answer this epochal question in the coming months by choosing a place and time to represent the moment when humanity became a “geological superpower”, overwhelming the natural processes that have governed Earth for billions of years.

They could decide the start is marked with a bang, thanks to the plutonium isotopes rapidly blasted around the planet by the hydrogen bomb tests that began in late 1952, or with a shower of soot particles from the surge in fossil-fuel power plants after the second world war.

Or they may choose the postwar explosion in artificial fertiliser use and its profound impact on the Earth’s natural nitrogen cycle. Microplastics, chicken bones and pesticide residues may also be among the eclectic signs used to bolster the definition of the Anthropocene.

It's Pluto all over again, grab your popcorn and don your lazy slippers!

 

[kerbiloid]

Herding and wood cutting can dramatically change landscape and local climate, thus change the erosion rate.

So, on the Ice Age finish.

Thus, the humans are a lifeform who was sleeping in hybernation  thanks to natural cryonics.
When the fridge got out of power, they warmed and started ruining everything around.

[darthgently]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

Herding and wood cutting can dramatically change landscape and local climate, thus change the erosion rate.

So, on the Ice Age finish.

Thus, the humans are a lifeform who was sleeping in hybernation  thanks to natural cryonics.
When the fridge got out of power, they warmed and started ruining everything around.

Nah,  life produced a species capable of transporting life elsewhere like a plant flowering.  Humans have things to do.  The Great Filter for intelligent life in the universe is whether they survive the existentialist species-level self-hatred that complex consciousness can create.  We may be the only ones to get past that filter.  Who knows? 

I'm guessing about a lot of this, of course.  Humans guess a lot.  It is part of what we do that other species do not do well

[StrandedonEarth]

48 minutes ago, darthgently said:

do.  The Great Filter for intelligent life in the universe is whether they survive the existentialist species-level self-hatred that complex consciousness can create.  We may be the only ones to get past that filter.  Who knows? 

We haven’t gotten through the Great Filter yet. We’ve barely gotten through the debris filter, never mind the activated carbon layer…

[Beamer]

22 minutes ago, StrandedonEarth said:

We haven’t gotten through the Great Filter yet. We’ve barely gotten through the debris filter, never mind the activated carbon layer…

I always think the idea of a "Great filter", as in a single bottleneck that you must pass to become inter-planetary/stellar/galactic life, is a bit too easy (or maybe just hopeful). A good filter consists of many layers. We have wormed our way through some of them, there's abiogenesis, eukaryotes, multi-cellular life, "tool use intelligence" (for lack of better words), technology. All of these could be considered layers of a filter and it's very hard to quantify which one is harder to get through, even though we made it to the other side, since all of them happened only once (or maybe a few times for some). And if you ask an astronomer or geologist instead of a biologist you would get another set of answers altogether.

We can have a good guess at what's close ahead - getting our eggs out of the single basket (=planet) and then expand our single egg shop (=star) to a franchise, but the exact details of how to get there and if they will split up in multiple distinct filter layers is debatable. And hey, for all we know there's no end to this filter and we just keep running into new layers forever. Looking back, even the definition of the 'end game' as we think of it (i.e. spreading out through the galaxy at least, the universe if possible) is still in its infancy and we might well have entirely different ideas of what our ultimate destination is a few hundred years from now. That would change what we think of as filters that still lay ahead, and might even make us question if it's worth trying to get through altogether.

 

[kerbiloid]

7 hours ago, darthgently said:

Nah,  life produced a species capable of transporting life elsewhere like a plant flowering.  Humans have things to do. 

Yes, that's exactly what I said.
Keep the fridge off for a month, and behold the miracle of life power.

7 hours ago, darthgently said:

The Great Filter for intelligent life in the universe is whether they survive the existentialist species-level self-hatred that complex consciousness can create. 

This can be formulated alternatively.
"The Great Filter for intelligent life in the universe is whether they can create enough devastating tool to eradicate themselves. Until they can, they are just animals."
It's harder than it seems. Humans still can't. All their arsenals can just crap into the well, many millions would survive in any case.

[steve9728]

On 1/15/2023 at 1:38 PM, kerbiloid said:

Keep the fridge off for a month, and behold the miracle of life power.

I can smell it already, thank you

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

On 1/15/2023 at 12:38 AM, kerbiloid said:

Keep the fridge off for a month, and behold the miracle of life

 

23 minutes ago, steve9728 said:

I can smell it already, thank you

My first apartment I had several roommates who I basically hated.  Left town for a month, only to return and discover they'd all moved out.  Leaving me to do the cleanup to get my deposit back.

Someone had left a watermelon in the fridge.

It leaked.

The resultant foot-and-a half puddle of sludge on the bottom of the fridge formed a something I had never heard of before.  Biofilm.

Let's just say it was 'interesting' to clean up.

[steve9728]

I shouldn't have been watching this while I was getting ready for a supper

Edited January 16, 2023 by steve9728

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

 

[Beamer]

 

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Put this in the interesting, inefficient and likely useless column. 

https://studyfinds.org/redirect-lightning-super-laser/

Unless they manage to hook up a molten salt battery or something else to store the power... I just cannot see the utility offsetting the costs. 

Edited January 16, 2023 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[magnemoe]

22 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Put this in the interesting, inefficient and likely useless column. 

https://studyfinds.org/redirect-lightning-super-laser/

Unless they manage to hook up a molten salt battery or something else to store the power... I just cannot see the utility offsetting the costs. 

Trying to dump lighting into an battery will create an explosion. 
Purpose is an virtual lighting rod, now an standard lighting rod would be cheaper in most cases. 
But if you need an weapon class laser cannon anyway its an good secondary role. 

Weird lighting story, high capacity power transmission lines tend to have wires above the power wires. this is an long lighting rod, at ever tower this is grounded. 
Once the people inspecting the wire found an flock of dead sheep at the base of an tower. The power lines tend to be cleared of trees to lots for sheep to eat. The workers assumes some other worker has spilled something who poisoned the sheep. 
But it turned out lightning followed the grounding wire down into the ground there it was looped around the foundation, stray current was enough to kill the sheep. Hooved animals seems to have low tolerance for electric shock. 

[kerbiloid]

India’s Population Has Already Overtaken China’s, Analysts Estimate

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-18/india-s-population-overtakes-china-to-become-world-s-biggest-analysts-estimate?srnd=premium-europe

[steve9728]

5 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

India’s Population Has Already Overtaken China’s, Analysts Estimate

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-18/india-s-population-overtakes-china-to-become-world-s-biggest-analysts-estimate?srnd=premium-europe

Education and urbanisation are the best contraceptives.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

9 hours ago, steve9728 said:

Education and urbanisation are the best contraceptives

True. 

Yet, this wasn't the only factor in China's current demographic shift. 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

The core of the HH 24 complex is a dense cloud of gas and dust that hosts at least seven known objects. These objects are small, hot, and dense but not yet have not yet reached the stage where they can fuse hydrogen in their cores and become true stars. However, one does seem to be right on the edge of that limit and will become a star essentially any day now.

...Because of their masses and orbits, they are bound to violently interact with each other. In fact, the astronomers have caught one such ejection in the act. The ejected object is an incredibly small protostar, almost small enough to count as a brown dwarf instead. It is currently moving away from the core of the protostellar system at about 25 km/s, which means it was orphaned about 5,800 years ago. In the next few thousand years, it will likely be joined by at least some of its siblings.

Astronomers spot an orphaned protostar (phys.org)

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

11 hours ago, steve9728 said:

Education and urbanisation are the best contraceptives.

Timely:

For the first time in modern history, the world’s population is expected to virtually stop growing by the end of this century, due in large part to falling global fertility rates, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of new data from the United Nations.

By 2100, the world’s population is projected to reach approximately 10.9 billion, with annual growth of less than 0.1% – a steep decline from the current rate. Between 1950 and today, the world’s population grew between 1% and 2% each year, with the number of people rising from 2.5 billion to more than 7.7 billion.

World population growth is expected to nearly stop by 2100 | Pew Research Center

 

[steve9728]

12 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Timely:

For the first time in modern history, the world’s population is expected to virtually stop growing by the end of this century, due in large part to falling global fertility rates, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of new data from the United Nations.

By 2100, the world’s population is projected to reach approximately 10.9 billion, with annual growth of less than 0.1% – a steep decline from the current rate. Between 1950 and today, the world’s population grew between 1% and 2% each year, with the number of people rising from 2.5 billion to more than 7.7 billion.

World population growth is expected to nearly stop by 2100 | Pew Research Center

 

So I was curious and google about "the top ten countries with highest population growth rate". Here's what I found: https://www.statista.com/statistics/264687/countries-with-the-highest-population-growth-rate/

If the map in my brain is correct, nearly all of these countries on this list are either in political turmoil or have been at war for at least the last decade. Some of them internal security situation is still volatile. In short, unless you are an explorer and a volunteer with a great humanitarian spirit, I don't think anyone wants to volunteer to live in these places.

 

Let's talk about something happy: Ozone layer recovery is on track, helping avoid global warming by 0.5℃

Edited January 19, 2023 by steve9728

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Billions of celestial objects captured by new survey of the Milky Way

The survey, which marks the second data release from the program since 2017, is the largest catalog of Milky Way objects to date. The Dark Energy Camera, located on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at the National Science Foundation’s Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, captured the data for the survey.

The telescopes there sit at an altitude of about 7,200 feet (2,200 meters) and can observe the southern sky in great detail across visible and near-infrared wavelengths of light. The two data releases from the Dark Energy Camera Plane Survey cover 6.5% of the night sky. Astronomers will be able to use the data release to better map the 3D structure of the galaxy’s dust and stars.

Billions of celestial objects caught by Milky Way survey | CNN

[Nightside]

Post-SLS NASA hype!

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-darpa-will-test-nuclear-engine-for-future-mars-missions

 

[DDE]

10 hours ago, Nightside said:

Post-SLS

I think that's very premature. NASA will likely be politically mandated to stick with the SLS for the next decade or three.

10 hours ago, Nightside said:

NASA

...but maintly as a tagalong for DARPA, who suddenly feel an acute need for the ability to rapidly deploy spacecraft to cislunar space.

[kerbiloid]

2 minutes ago, DDE said:

I think that's very premature. NASA will likely be politically mandated to stick with the SLS for the next decade or three.

Exactly when the nuke gets ready, lol.