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

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Ever wonder what your monkey-mice ancestors looked like during the age of the dinosaur? 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.inverse.com/innovation/oldest-human-ancestor-fossil-found-in-montana/amp

[kerbiloid]

Great intellect is shining in its small but smart eyes, and a great corporative office career is clearly visible in its portrait and behaviour..

Spoiler

But look! They were able into gravity manipulation!

The thing below is standing on ground, while our hero is horizontally standing on branch.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Welcome Lord Sauron!

Volcanic Lightning: The Science Behind This Spectacular Phenomenon (scitechdaily.com)

(You should see this just for the photos)

Edited May 10, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Any billionaires out there who want a chunk of history? 

https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/11/world/dinosaur-apocalypse-tanis-fossil-site-scn/index.html

Iridium layer asteroid piece found (?) 

[kerbiloid]

In addition to the piece of Iridium, there should be a Kosmos-2251 piece nearby.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_satellite_collision

[Gargamel]

2 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Any billionaires out there who want a chunk of history? 

https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/11/world/dinosaur-apocalypse-tanis-fossil-site-scn/index.html

Iridium layer asteroid piece found (?) 

Having used to work with > 50 troy ounces of iridium every day.... I'm not that impressed.  

 

Ok... I am I am...

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

41 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

In addition to the piece of Iridium, there should be a Kosmos-2251 piece nearby.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_satellite_collision

"By December 2011, many pieces of the debris were in an observable orbital decay towards Earth, and were expected to burn up in the atmosphere within one to two years" 

 

Really? 

 

I was under the impression that it would take longer for stuff at that altitude to decay... If true - why aren't more defunct satellites dropping out of the sky and the orbits getting cleaned up? 

[kerbiloid]

44 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I was under the impression that it would take longer for stuff at that altitude to decay... If true - why aren't more defunct satellites dropping out of the sky and the orbits getting cleaned up? 

Satellites are dense and compact, metal sheets are flat and lightweight, like sails.

Once the satellite turns into sheets, its total cross-section area grows by orders of magnitude.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

11 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Satellites are dense and compact, metal sheets are flat and lightweight, like sails.

Once the satellite turns into sheets, its total cross-section area grows by orders of magnitude.

So there's a cross section to mass effect going on here?  The dense, unbroken satellite can effectively power through the thin wisps of atmosphere without dropping velocity - whereas the broken parts, effectively sheets, are more like the feather (light weight compared to surface area) and so the effect is greater?

[kerbiloid]

Yes.

Also the solar light is pressing them more effectively for the same reason.

[StrandedonEarth]

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

So there's a cross section to mass effect going on here?  The dense, unbroken satellite can effectively power through the thin wisps of atmosphere without dropping velocity - whereas the broken parts, effectively sheets, are more like the feather (light weight compared to surface area) and so the effect is greater?

I would also guess that many pieces ended up in more elliptical orbits with lower perigees. 

[DDE]

The set for the new The Lost World movie looks swag

https://english.news.cn/20220507/722aa19654e9469db044f1c231fb260e/c.html

[kerbiloid]

28 minutes ago, DDE said:

The set for the new The Lost World movie looks swag

https://english.news.cn/20220507/722aa19654e9469db044f1c231fb260e/c.html

Spoiler

https://kaijugaming.com/gallery-having-a-nosy-around-minecrafts-new-world-generation/

When a Chinese game server with ten millions of Minecraft users had installed a platform upgrade, it unexpectedly changed the physical reality.,.

We live in Matrix!

Let's hope, they guard the cave well.

P.S.
We need an Antarctic expedition to check if there is an underice polar Mohole.

 

Edited May 13, 2022 by kerbiloid

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/12/asia/tonga-eruption-biggest-in-more-a-century-scn/index.html

As big as Krakatoa 

Winds actually had an effect in space:

the Tonga volcano also created havoc in space, spurring hurricane-strength winds, based on data from NASA's Ionospheric Connection Explorer, or ICON, mission and the European Space Agency's Swarm satellites.

The giant plume of gases, water vapor and dust pushed into the sky by the eruption created large pressure disturbances in the atmosphere, leading to strong winds, NASA said in a statement. As these winds expanded upward into thinner layers of the atmosphere, they began moving faster.

"Upon reaching the ionosphere and the edge of space, ICON clocked the windspeeds at up to 450 mph -- making them the strongest winds below 120 miles altitude measured by the mission since its launch," NASA said.

Edited May 13, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Plants grown in Lunar Regolith:

 

Germination readily occurred on all samples between 48 and 60 hours after planting, and all lunar seedlings exhibited normal stems and cotyledons (Fig. 2a), indicating that nothing derived from the full contact with the hydrated regolith interfered with the complex set of signaling events required for early aerial development

Plants grown in Apollo lunar regolith present stress-associated transcriptomes that inform prospects for lunar exploration | Communications Biology (nature.com)

however:

by the sixth day, the plants in lunar soil began to grow differently than the control group of thale cress. Researchers found that the lunar regolith plants grew slower and displayed "stunted roots," NASA said. "Additionally, some had stunted leaves and sported reddish pigmentation."

After 20 days, RNA sequencing of the plants revealed that those grown in lunar soil were under stress and reacted in ways the plant typically would in harsh environments, NASA said. 

"At the genetic level, the plants were pulling out the tools typically used to cope with stressors, such as salt and metals or oxidative stress, so we can infer that the plants perceive the lunar soil environment as stressful,"

Scientists grow plants in soil from the moon for the first time in history - CBS News

[kerbiloid]

The plants can grow even in a glass pot, but the nutrition still should be delivered, and the gas/vapor pressure be supported.

Edited May 13, 2022 by kerbiloid

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

The plants can grow even in a glass pot, but the nutrition still should be delivered, and the gas/vapor pressure be supported.

I'm surprised that they started with plants.  I'd think they'd seed it with lichen and rock eating fungi and perhaps some bacteria to transform the regolith to soil... But then what do I know - I'm not a biologist 

[tater]

http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/209243

 

[magnemoe]

On 5/12/2022 at 6:33 PM, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

So there's a cross section to mass effect going on here?  The dense, unbroken satellite can effectively power through the thin wisps of atmosphere without dropping velocity - whereas the broken parts, effectively sheets, are more like the feather (light weight compared to surface area) and so the effect is greater?

It is, total surface area goes up a lot. Now you could have satellite parts like reaction wheels who are heavy and have low surface area but this is much rarer than other stuff. 
This is also why meteorites can air burst, it breaks up who increase the surface area causing more heating causing more break ups who increase heating and you get an explosion who pressure wave breaks up more parts. 

The real problem is then you get to higher orbits with little air. Say you want to launch something into GSO, its an small satellite so you want to use second stage to help circulate it before dropping payload and do an deorbit burn. But at the end of the partial circulation upper stage dies. Pe is 8000 km later second stage explodes because pressure buildup and common bulkhead fail followed by an fuel oxidizer explosion. 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Cosmology is weird.

Now in an effort to cram the universe into the lambdaCDM model they are proposing 'invisible space walls' that constrain galaxies 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/futurism.com/scientists-space-invisible-walls/amp

This is WAY over my head... But maybe some of you learned folks (like @K^2)(?) can explain whether this is a reasonable line of inquiry or rampant speculation by people who are overly tied to the model because it works in many ways elsewhere?  

Edit - this odd little video provides a tldr:

 

Edited May 17, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Now in an effort to cram the universe into the lambdaCDM model they are proposing 'invisible space walls' that constrain galaxies 

Yes, the space is hexed.

Spoiler

 

***

A decade later the scientists will discover the "saving throws".

Edited May 17, 2022 by kerbiloid

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Also in news: Another Denisovan tooth found.  This time in Laos. 

https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/17/asia/tooth-laos-denisovans-human-evolution-scn/index.html

 

[steve9728]

A well-preserved fossil Hadrosaurus embryo discovered in China. And the scientists named it as Ying Baby (英贝贝)

https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042(21)01487-5#secsectitle0040

“In contrast, the larger chicks of the subfamily Lambeosaurus are early adults and can join the herd very quickly after birth. This interesting difference naturally raises a question for evolutionary biologists about the ancestral traits of Hadrosaurus: were the Hadrosaurus-like ancestors late or early hatchlings during the hatching process? The small size of the eggs and embryos in the embryonic eggs of Ying Baby, similar to that of the Hadrosaurus subfamily, suggests that small eggs and late chicks are the original traits of Hadrosaurus, while the larger eggs and early chicks of the Lambeosaurus subfamily are derived from them, which is the most important scientific insight that the embryonic eggs of Ying Baby tell us.”

[kerbiloid]

9 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Also in news: Another Denisovan tooth found. 

Based on the numerous found teeth, most of Denisovans and Neanderthals had blue eyes.

Spoiler

But initially - red.

 

[kerbiloid]

The Vice Premier of Russia, Yuri Borisov has stated today that Russia is using  (you-know-where) the next-gen battlefield anti-aircraft lasers "Zadira" ("Bully") which are not just blinding the aerial drones (like the prior-gen "Peresvet" does),  but burn holes in them at up to 5 km distances.