Interesting Science Stuff Thread

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

http://www.fromquarkstoquasars.com/why-you-can-never-actually-touch-anything/

Interesting... why you can't actually touch anything

[Terring 6,473]

http://sciencealert.com.au/news/20142706-25765.html

 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

^ Very nice.  I didn't see a cost in the article, but I'll bet it is of military grade (the cost, that is).

[Masun78 0]

I don't know if this has been posted yet but here goes..

 

http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/07/health/cohen-cancer-study/

http://video.foxnews.com/v/2915246450001/killing-cancer-like-the-common-cold/#sp=show-clips

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Aboard the ISS, make that an espresso, please.

 

Creature comforts in space.  A good idea.

[Belfastsocrates 1,753]

If this can be perfected for human organs then it could help revolutionise the availability of organs. 

 

 

Organ transplants: 'Supercooling' keeps organs fresh

A new technique can preserve organs for days before transplanting them, US researchers claim. "Supercooling" combines chilling the organ and pumping nutrients and oxygen through its blood vessels.

 

Tests on animals, reported in the journal Nature Medicine, showed supercooled livers remained viable for three days, compared with less than 24 hours using current technology. If it works on human organs, it has the potential to transform organ donation.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

A fine feathered bird of prey.

 

Fossil evidence is really astonishing.  That aside, however, I think the artist got a little carried away.

[Belfastsocrates 1,753]

A fine feathered bird of prey.

 

Fossil evidence is really astonishing.  That aside, however, I think the artist got a little carried away.

 

Just a bit.  

 

The fossilised remains are incredible though

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Rocky (earth-like?) planet orbits only one star in a binary system.

 

Both stars are red dwarfs.  The surface temperature on the planet is about -200 F.  It is also twice as massive as earth, so that means the surface gravity is probably about 4g.  Such fun to visit, and only 3.000 light years away.

[Terring 6,473]

[Ocram's Razr 963]

Well, I looked it up and it says that our radio broadcasts reach 200 light years. That is enough to reach a few stars but that picture shows that it doesn't reach very far in relation with the Galaxy.

--Ocram

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Yes, and the RMS law says that it will be just background noise at that distance.

[Ocram's Razr 963]

Yes, and the RMS law says that it will be just background noise at that distance.

Don't you mean the inverse square law? I don't think there is any applicable laws in relationship with the root mean square. I am attending a physics of waves class currently and I have learned quite a bit already. Anyway, if there was a civilization that could pick up radio signals between 100 and 250 light years away (light will travel 50 more light years in 50 years), that civilization might be a tad bit curious as to why our solar system is emitting so much radio noise in the standard radio frequency band. I understand that light traveling in all directions reduces in intensity as it spreads but we should have produced enough that it will be noticeable. Although I doubt there are any other civilizations in our area of the galaxy. I believe that if and once light speed or faster transportation methods are invented, humanity will find absolutely no resistance from other civilizations if and when we colonize other planets.

--Ocram

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Quite right.  Sorry for the typo.  I really meant to type an I but somehow it came out R.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

More feathered dinosaurs.

 

This one doesn't seem to be very successful as a species because it was not really a bird, nor a land raptor.  Nature does some funny things.  Mendel would be pleased.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Woods hole loses deep sea submersible flagship.

 

The article lacks detail other than the vessel imploded at depth.  Wonder if they'll ever find the money to build a new and better one?

 

And a comet that looks like a rubber ducky.

 

They are going to try a soft landing on this body.  Should be all kinds of interesting things.

[Duke87 1,070]

Black holes... meet white holes.

 

According to this line of thinking, a black hole actually only exists for a tiny fraction of a second before it disintegrates and blows the matter that fell into it back out into space. But because of the effects of time dilation and the extreme distortions the black hole causes to spacetime, it appears to an outside observer to last billions of years.

 

This is an amazing concept.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Aha!  Conservation of information has driven this, no doubt.  I was always unhappy with the idea that the information was projected into the conformal space at infinity.  I like the idea that what goes in must come out in accordance with the conservation of energy.

 

So, are we any closer to a Unified Field Theory or are we still trying to figure out magnetism and gravity?  Maxwell's equations aside, we really don't have a handle on magnetism, we can only use it.  As for gravity, that's a deep subject not well understood.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Our feathered friends?

 

T-rex is supposed to be much more colourful than that leathery depiction we've all seen.

[Terring 6,473]

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Thin film to shield aircraft cockpits from green lasers.

 

If there are nearly 500 incidents in Canada, the rest of the world must have much more.  What fools some people are.

[Duke87 1,070]

At least one town in the US has outright banned the sale or possession of laser pointers on account of this sort of thing. Many others have regulations on who may possess or sell them (New York City, for example, bans their possession by anyone under the age of 18).

 

 

Indeed, the trouble with laser pointers is that when you first turn one on, it seems pretty cool, but then after waving it around a bit you start to realize it doesn't really do much in and of itself. So the temptation to start doing dumb things with it quickly arises. This is when you get people trying to see how small and distant a target they can sneak the point into (such as an airplane cockpit, or a window in a neighboring building), or shining it into a police officer's face because that totally makes you seem badass you rebel you.

 

 

My recommendation: if you want to play with a laser pointer, get a cat. Then you can amuse yourself all day with it.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

As long as you don't damage the cat with it, and refrain from looking into the laser beam with your remaining eye.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I had a dinosaur sandwich (chicken) for lunch?

 

"They" say that rattlesnake also tastes like chicken but I am too chicken to try it.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Three Industrial Revolutions based on sand.

 

Ask not what you can do for sand, but what sand can do for you.  Glass, computer chips, solar panels.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

"Hello comet"

 

ESA Rosetta mission rendezvous successful.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Hemp fibre waste application surprise.

 

 

The waste fibres from hemp crops can be transformed into high-performance energy storage devices, scientists say.

 

They "cooked" cannabis bark into carbon nanosheets and built supercapacitors "on a par with or better than graphene" - the industry gold standard.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Polar ice melt increases ocean depth by 1 mm per annum.

 

So over 20 years that's 2 cm, or almost an inch.  For some countries this could be pretty serious.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

BIG

 

Probably spent all its time eating just to stay alive.

[anytownUSA 32]

Polar ice melt increases ocean depth by 1 mm per annum.

 

So over 20 years that's 2 cm, or almost an inch.  For some countries this could be pretty serious.

 

I've seen all the data on global warming, and decided not to worry about it in the least.  I've always thought it was pretty arrogant to think that human civilization has more effect on the climate than the sun and the oceans.