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

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

5 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

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

That's cool - never heard of it until now 

[darthgently]

3 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

That's cool - never heard of it until now 

So, not a good location for a solar farm?  But excellent for lazy storm chasers 

[tater]

Whirlpool galaxy. Webb.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

 

 

                            Wowsers

[tater]

40 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

 

 

                            Wowsers

Right?

[tater]

Cool for people in high latitudes:

 

[steve9728]

Not quite sure if that is some kind of "science news" but indeed it's a medical one: live worm found in Australian woman’s brain in world-first discovery

Excuse me, I'm gonna go throw up for a while... yueeeee

[steve9728]

Russia terminated cooperation on the CR929 wide-body airliner

Only speaking in terms of the technic and time management, a project in China where you're "doing preliminary design" in 2018, keep "doing preliminary design" in 2020, and still "doing preliminary design" in 2022, is something that would make any Chinese boss throw your everything off your desk out of the window. It's kind of a timely stop loss in a way.

The apprentice was always going to leave the master's classroom, and now is the time.

[DDE]

On 9/2/2023 at 9:03 PM, steve9728 said:

Russia terminated cooperation on the CR929 wide-body airliner

Only speaking in terms of the technic and time management, a project in China where you're "doing preliminary design" in 2018, keep "doing preliminary design" in 2020, and still "doing preliminary design" in 2022, is something that would make any Chinese boss throw your everything off your desk out of the window. It's kind of a timely stop loss in a way.

The apprentice was always going to leave the master's classroom, and now is the time.

Unfortunately, preliminary design is the project stage with de facto the highest profit margins (you can cram in a lot of... dubious expenses), whereas mass production on Russian government contracts has a way of ending up below cost.

Imagine having to find a way to pay an engineer when only the region's average salary is allowed to be budgeted into your costs, and the rest is coming out of your (slim) on-paper profit margin...

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

1 hour ago, DDE said:

Imagine having to find a way to pay an engineer when only the region's average salary is allowed to be budgeted into your costs, and the rest is coming out of your (slim) on-paper profit margin

Hold the phone - I thought that was the old system.  How is this thinking still in play? 

[steve9728]

1 hour ago, DDE said:

Unfortunately, preliminary design is the project stage with de facto the highest profit margins (you can cram in a lot of... dubious expenses), whereas mass production on Russian government contracts has a way of ending up below cost.

Imagine having to find a way to pay an engineer when only the region's average salary is allowed to be budgeted into your costs, and the rest is coming out of your (slim) on-paper profit margin...

Standing on Russian’s position and the previous great deals with our Indian friends on naval equipment “cooperation”, of course. Man that deals make everyone jealous lol

But bad news is, here’s a organization called Central Inspection Team…

“We all think you are quite a promising lad. For the sake of your bright future can be, we strongly advised to think this twice wisely.”

But seriously, there is basically all have a very strict deadline for the development of many things in China. Just like the typical Chinese logic that everyone knows - I don't care how you made it, I only care if you made it. Spend bunch of money and time but didn’t finish anything, you’d better have a reasonable excuse.

Edited September 4, 2023 by steve9728

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Nothing succeeds like success. 

[DDE]

On 9/4/2023 at 4:03 PM, steve9728 said:

But bad news is, here’s a organization called Central Inspection Team…

The Accounts Chamber aren't exactly good news either. After my recent engagement with a government client, I'm utterly convinced that spending supervision and the associated paperwork are eclipsing actual work under government contracts... which leaves precisely zero room for failure in R&D, an activity associated with numerous failures and dead ends.

Fixing the inefficiency of bureaucracy with another level of bureaucracy was a dubious proposition anyway...

[StrandedonEarth]

2 hours ago, DDE said:

Fixing the inefficiency of bureaucracy with another level of bureaucracy was a dubious proposition anyway...

(Read in Leonard Nimoy’s voice, per Civ4):

“The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the ever-expanding bureaucracy“

[darthgently]

3 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

“The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the ever-expanding bureaucracy“

This is why we don't see signs of advanced extraterrestrial civilizations.  Sentience smothering bureaucratic overload.  WRT the Drake Eqn, this is one possible Great Filter.   I call it the Kafka Filter.   This is *not* the way.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

My current favorite version of He*ck comes from Good Omens 

 

[DDE]

Electrostatic fusors are capable of fusion and thus emit a non-negligable amlunt of ionizing and neutron radiation. Are they safe? As far as I can see, a transparent pressure vessel is considered sufficient.

[farmerben]

Fusors can be dangerous.  It's worth monitoring the radiation and estimating the human dose.  A low dose of neutrons does not do much to the human body.  You have to remember not to keep any cobalt near it, and monitor generally.

[steve9728]

Early-stage human kidneys grown in pigs for first time

 

The world's best-preserved dinosaur skin fossil and a new genus of Ceratosaurus were discovered in Fengning, Chengde, Hebei.

Spoiler

Skin marks on the back of a stegosaurus

Stegosaurus dinosaur fossils

Ceratopsian dinosaur fossils

"After more than five years of excavation, restoration, and research by the research team confirmed that the two phytophagous dinosaur fossils discovered in 2017 and 2018 in Fengning, Chengde, Hebei Province, one is in the Jehol Biota and Hebei Province for the first time the discovery of stegosaurus dinosaurs, its skeleton, skin impressions preservation of nearly 100%, more than all known dinosaur skin fossils, can be called the world's dinosaur skin fossils of the most, known as the "Stegosaurus #1 in the Jehol"; the other is a new genus of ceratopsian dinosaurs."

[FleshJeb]

Xyla Foxlin builds and flies a carbon fiber model rocket. Best line, "Hot glue rhymes with Mach 2."

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Am I wrong to see the obvious application of 600 stone balls as weapons? 

A sling is incredibly easy to make, and a plum sized stone slung at relatively close range should cripple most medium to small sized game. 

... 

And yet the entire speculation in this article about 1.4 myo stone balls is 'art'. 

https://www.science.org/content/article/were-these-stone-balls-made-ancient-human-relatives-trying-perfect-sphere

The organic matter of the sling wouldn't survive - but you generally don't craft 600 of anything just for the heck of it. 

 

[kerbiloid]

They are dice!

Protohumans were playing board games.

Also, that's a purpose of the cave paintings.

[Vanamonde]

1.4mn years ago the cutting edge of technology was a rock with a cutting edge. A sling would have been several steps too advanced for them because it would include preserving hide and turning it into leather, which involves soaking the hide for quite some time in noxious substances, which you have collected despite their non-obvious utility, then cutting the leather to the right shape, then practicing flinging rocks at stuff until you could consistently hit something, while slings are not known for their accuracy. The suggestion that the rocks might be art seem similarly unlikely, but at least would not be beyond their means. 

[Terwin]

42 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

1.4mn years ago the cutting edge of technology was a rock with a cutting edge. A sling would have been several steps too advanced for them because it would include preserving hide and turning it into leather, which involves soaking the hide for quite some time in noxious substances, which you have collected despite their non-obvious utility, then cutting the leather to the right shape, then practicing flinging rocks at stuff until you could consistently hit something, while slings are not known for their accuracy. The suggestion that the rocks might be art seem similarly unlikely, but at least would not be beyond their means. 

Just because leather is a preferred material for slings does not make it the only possible option.

Then again, a small plum would be a good compromise between large enough to throw easily and small enough to carry spares, so it seams feasible that they could even just be manually thrown stones.

Or they could be thrown using a wooden atlatl-like arm extension.

Humans are endlessly inventive when it comes to ways to kill things after all.

Unless this is just a case of trying to figure out how to manage wheels(round stones fed into the front and scooped up from the rear could last longer than wooden rollers.

[darthgently]

4 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Am I wrong to see the obvious application of 600 stone balls as weapons? 

A sling is incredibly easy to make, and a plum sized stone slung at relatively close range should cripple most medium to small sized game. 

... 

And yet the entire speculation in this article about 1.4 myo stone balls is 'art'. 

https://www.science.org/content/article/were-these-stone-balls-made-ancient-human-relatives-trying-perfect-sphere

The organic matter of the sling wouldn't survive - but you generally don't craft 600 of anything just for the heck of it. 

 

With a consistent "ball", tons of practice, and no special knowledge or materials those stones could be thrown hard enough to bring down small game like birds, rabbits, and squirrels reliably well.  If they are really that bright yellow color, they'd be a lot easier to retrieve after throwing.  No sling required.  I mean some teenagers in current times throw 90mph fast balls (iirc).   Occam's razor?