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Everyone better grab something heavy and hold on for dear life, the Earth's core has slowed down and may possibly reverse its rotation (relative to the mantle): https://phys.org/news/2023-01-earth-core.html

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The inner core started rotating slightly faster than the rest of the planet in the early 1970s, the study said.

But it had been slowing down before coming in sync with Earth's rotation around 2009, it added.

There has been a "negative trend" since, the study said, meaning the inner core is now rotating slower than the surface.

Ok, maybe it's no "The Core"... let's hope it's not, I don't think I could survive that 'quality' of plot writing and acting in reality.

 

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9 minutes ago, Beamer said:

Everyone better grab something heavy and hold on for dear life, the Earth's core has slowed down and may possibly reverse its rotation (relative to the mantle): https://phys.org/news/2023-01-earth-core.html

Ok, maybe it's no "The Core"... let's hope it's not, I don't think I could survive that 'quality' of plot writing and acting in reality.

 

I read that - but aside from 'dramatic claims require dramatic proof' - the guy at the end of the article saying,  "we don't know exactly what we are seeing - but we do agree that we are seeing something - and maybe in 10 years we will know what"... That guy is who I'm hearing. 

Edited by JoeSchmuckatelli
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12 hours ago, Beamer said:

A while ago a friend of mine asked me what time it was on Mars. I didn't know the answer, other than 'UTC'. Looks like there isn't an answer yet, but they're working towards it! What time is it on the Moon?  [nature.com]

 

A thought: use three kinds of time regimes. UTC for international corporate, the local standard time for communicate with ground control and the daily routine for astronauts, and the time on the moon for sharing the photos up there.

You know, if we use UTC only, in China where's UTC+8 would create a little chaos: you're sleeping while everyone else is at work, you're at work while everyone else is off work, you're off work while everyone else is sleeping.

Edited by steve9728
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What sources do you guys use for science news aggregators?    I used to use IFLS, but they started getting really click baity and then their iOS app is just broken, so I’ve moved on.     Looking for a good reputable source with accurate in-depth science reporting, preferably with an iOS app, but a website works fine too. 

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18 minutes ago, Gargamel said:

What sources do you guys use for science news aggregators?    I used to use IFLS, but they started getting really click baity and then their iOS app is just broken, so I’ve moved on.     Looking for a good reputable source with accurate in-depth science reporting, preferably with an iOS app, but a website works fine too. 

I like www.phys.org

Edited by Vl3d
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4 hours ago, Gargamel said:

What sources do you guys use for science news aggregators?    I used to use IFLS, but they started getting really click baity and then their iOS app is just broken, so I’ve moved on.     Looking for a good reputable source with accurate in-depth science reporting, preferably with an iOS app, but a website works fine too. 

I don't really use an aggregator.  I'm kind of all over the internet and will find stuff that way or else will be googling keywords like 'metallurgy' or 'materials science' or 'cosmology'. 

But Science ( https://www.science.org/  ) is among the best. 

Edit - and phys.  It's solid, too. 

Edited by JoeSchmuckatelli
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@Gargamel one of the things I do is stumble across an interesting story on a regular news or another kind of weak or hype site that is low on my scale of credibility... But because they are click (ahem, oldest professionals) tend to push all kinds of stories... I will see the headline there first and then see if I can find the same story on a credible site and if I like it will publish it here. 

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7 hours ago, Gargamel said:

What sources do you guys use for science news aggregators?    I used to use IFLS, but they started getting really click baity and then their iOS app is just broken, so I’ve moved on.     Looking for a good reputable source with accurate in-depth science reporting, preferably with an iOS app, but a website works fine too. 

I've got a number of RSS feeds running in my browser (I use the 'Brief' extension for Firefox, can recommend it). phys.org, newatlas.com, scientificamerican.com, wired.com, slashdot.org, theregister.com, arstechnica.com, huffpost.com for the funnies. Note that some of these are primarily IT news related rather than science news related. Whenever I find an article I like, I click through to the source and see if that website has an RSS feed too. Surprisingly most of them still do.

 

Edited by Beamer
.com -> .org
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A team of researchers from the NPU has completed a scaled-down model test flight of a hybrid wing body airliner

In fact, I think it may not actually be the technology itself that is limiting the development of this shape of airliner, but the cost of building supporting facilities at airports around the world.

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1 hour ago, steve9728 said:

In fact, I think it may not actually be the technology itself that is limiting the development of this shape of airliner, but the cost of building supporting facilities at airports around the world.

The way I've heard it explained, is that the biggest hurdle is evacuation of the passengers. The requirement is, if I recall correctly, that the plane must be emptied in a minute even with any two doors blocked. Bit hard to do that on a lifting body design.

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4 hours ago, Codraroll said:

The way I've heard it explained, is that the biggest hurdle is evacuation of the passengers. The requirement is, if I recall correctly, that the plane must be emptied in a minute even with any two doors blocked. Bit hard to do that on a lifting body design.

The rule is that a plane must be evacuated in 90 seconds with half the doors blocked*. Note that this must also work with the landing gear collapsed, so evacuating them through the floor is a non-starter.

* "Half the doors blocked" means that if a door on the left is open, one on the right can be blocked. It is not a requirement to be able to evacuate in 90 seconds with the doors at the front all blocked so that everybody has to go all the way to the back to evacuate.

Edited by mikegarrison
clarity about "half the doors"
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2 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

The rule is that a plane must be evacuated in 90 seconds with half the doors blocked. Note that this must also work with the landing gear collapsed, so evacuating them through the floor is a non-starter.

  • No triple seats, only twins, so everyone is sitting close to a passage.
  • An evacuation trough under the hollow floor of the passage, to let the passengers slide along. Retractable floor top panels.
  • Seats, automatically tilting sideways on evacuation, to drop the passenger into the trough aside,
  • A chute in every seat, to let them be evacuated in flight. So, "Fasten seat belts" = "Prepare to bail out". 
  • And inflatable jacket to keep them floating and to soften the fall on the runway.
  • Hatches in the rear end of the troughs, to let the burst of passengers slide out one by one, several per second.
  • A front hatch to make the air pressure push the passengers along the trough in flight
  • A gas generator to spit them out at zero height and speed.
  • A sleeping gas to let them not see this.
    (Ideally, a binary mixture. One component they consume with air food, another component they inhale on emergency from the cabin air. It's more safe).
Edited by kerbiloid
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2 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:
  • No triple seats, only twins, so everyone is sitting close to a passage.
  • An evacuation trough under the hollow floor of the passage, to let the passengers slide along. Retractable floor top panels.
  • Seats, automatically tilting sideways on evacuation, to drop the passenger into the trough aside,
  • A chute in every seat, to let them be evacuated in flight. So, "Fasten seat belts" = "Prepare to bail out". 
  • And inflatable jacket to keep them floating and to soften the fall on the runway.
  • Hatches in the rear end of the troughs, to let the burst of passengers slide out one by one, several per second.
  • A front hatch to make the air pressure push the passengers along the trough in flight
  • A gas generator to spit them out at zero height and speed.

You would need something like 1000 m/s of extra DeltaV with all that "baggage".

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3 hours ago, Codraroll said:

The way I've heard it explained, is that the biggest hurdle is evacuation of the passengers. The requirement is, if I recall correctly, that the plane must be emptied in a minute even with any two doors blocked. Bit hard to do that on a lifting body design.

Maybe the cabin can be designed like a cargo, when there's an emergency, the wall of the cain will be opened, so passengers can be evacuated through the sides of the plane.

(I'm a Chinese and not good at English, so it might be a little hard to read this text. )

Edited by SpacestationDog
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