Interesting Science Stuff Thread

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Back to natural science:

 

According to convention there is a sweet and a bitter, a hot and a cold,
and according to convention, there is an order.  In truth, there are atoms
and a void.
        -- Democritus, 400 B.C.
 

And it took us how long to find this out again?  And remember by 'atom' he meant 'indivisible particle'.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

And speaking of natural science: How about a new animal?

 

Cute little guy, and quite similar but not inter-fertile with the species everyone mistook it for for many years.  Somewhere in the life chain there has been a DNA hiccup.  Who knows which came first?

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

Very cute little animal. interesting.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

An alert in Europe.

 

Plant more trees, or else ...

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Music competitions judged by visual rather than aural evidence.

 

Stage presence and antics more important than the music?

 

"Close your eyes and listen."

-- Richard Wagner.

[astronelson 339]

Music competitions judged by visual rather than aural evidence.

 

Stage presence and antics more important than the music?

 

"Close your eyes and listen."

-- Richard Wagner.

 

We've been interpreting MacBeth's final soliloquy incorrectly all this time - it is the sound and fury that signifies nothing, not the tale. What matters is how the player, who this study shows can safely be heard no more, struts and frets his hour upon the stage.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

So music lessons must include very good acting lessons as well if solo performance is to be expected.  Says something for candelabras.

[Mary Maurine Mayo 984]

I saw something on FB about a blue moon tonight. why do they call it a blue moon?

[Bdub01 201]

I saw something on FB about a blue moon tonight. why do they call it a blue moon?

Here's something I ran across. Just ignore the middle part.

http://www.ucolick.org/~mountain/AAA/bluemoon.html

[AkemiAzula 280]

I saw the so called blue moon through my window. Pathetic. Wasn't even blue. I want my money back, God. Not that I paid any money. Or believe in Gods. Or even care.

[Duke87 1,070]

Using your brain to control someone else's body.

 

Freaky.

[AkemiAzula 280]

I predicted they'd do this sort of experiment one day. 

 

Keep in mind that this is a wired setup. With all this Google Glass and smart phone stuff... Imagine hackers gaining access not only to our PCs but to our brains and bodies. 

 

That's when our problems really begin.

[hym 358]

I have to say that I am not surprised. Considering DARPA's research on developing thought controlled prosthetics, this is inevitable.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Well it needs to be hack proof.  What one fool can do, another can undo.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Antarctic Ice Sheet and Climate Change.

 

"Since it contains enough water to raise global sea levels by over 50m, there is an urgent need to study the threat the researchers said.

 

The research has been published in the journal Nature."

 

The current chance of a complete melt is infinitesimal.  However the scale of the possibility is staggering.

[AkemiAzula 280]

50 m eh. Well the house I live in is about 20 m asl. However there is a conveniently located hill nearby rising to 81 m asl. So long Dutch STers, it was nice knowing you.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Not likely to happen any time soon.  It is an extreme example.  Now add in the Greenland Ice pack and the fun really starts.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The etiology of Tuberculosis.

 

Suspected origin moved back 60,000 years.

 

I've been vaccinated and I hope everyone else has been too.  This is a bad way to go.  This disease used to be called consumption.  One of the more prominent victims: General Wolfe, the conqueror of Quebec.

 

Historical records show that Wolfe was coughing up blood before the battle.  It was probably a mercy that he was killed during the fracas.

[AkemiAzula 280]

One of my ancestors died of consumption in the 1800s. I don't know if I've been vaccinated. Probably. I remember when I was about one or two I got some vaccinations. I remember the bandaid they put on the needlemarks quite well. I remember it was a sunny day too.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Rare Earth Elements provide transparent port into the brain.

 

Expensive, no matter how you look at it.

 

"They have converted a material - yttria-stabilized zirconia that is used in some ceramic hip implants and dental crowns - to make it transparent."

 

Sounds like a kind of glass made from yttrium oxide and zirconium oxide.  Both rare earths, both used in nuclear physics.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Private sector space facility launches NASA experiment.

 

Interesting package.  Too bad its a one-way trip.  More orbiting space junk from the launch vehicle.

[Easy Bakes 253]

Worlds largest Single Volcano found  off Japanese coast

 

http://blogs.voanews.com/science-world/2013/09/06/worlds-largest-single-volcano-found-off-japan-coast/

[SteveMSim 275]

Worlds largest Single Volcano found  off Japanese coast

 

http://blogs.voanews.com/science-world/2013/09/06/worlds-largest-single-volcano-found-off-japan-coast/

 

I've heard of this.  Tamu Massif is only 20% smaller than Mars' Olympic Mons, the largest volcano in the solar system.  Tamu Massif is so big it would cover the entire state of New Mexico or the British Isles.  Yet the volcano's slopes are so gentle a person standing on them would not know which way was up or down and may not even be aware he's on a mountain.  The discoverers say that there could even be bigger volcanoes under the ocean because other large oceanic plateaus of volcanic origin have not been fully explored.  The team is now studying the Otong Java Plateau, a similar volcanic formation in the southwest Pacific that is larger than Tamu Massif.

[Odainsaker 2,134]

On the topic of volcanos...

 

The program "Terebi Mirai isan:  Kiseki no Zekkei Misuterii," "TV Future Heritage:  Miraculous Scenic Views of Mystery,"  aired a few weeks ago on Japanese TBS.  This is ostensibly a "nature" edutainment program, so they have Australian naturalist adventurers drop celebrity pop idol Takizawa Hideaki screaming into the roiling lava pool of Marum crater on the island volcano of Ambrym in Vanuatu.  The insurance department at the Johnny's talent agency must have been aghast.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghg0-oZsf3s

 

No subtitles, but we can assume that "sugoi" means "oh gawds, I'm staring Death in the face!"  No, Tackey, don't fall!

 

Many of us will have seen the spewing lava geysers of the Big Island of Hawaii, but, I've never peered down into an actual lava pool, let alone considered sport rappelling down into one or camping along its rim.  Yikes!  Beautiful scenery, but...yikes!  The glowing red ash and gas at night over the red cauldron definitely looks like a true Hellmouth on Earth.

 

 

Takizawa-san, Banzai!

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

^ Interesting shot from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

[Easy Bakes 253]

camping next to an active volcano is not a smart idea. some of those gases like to creep along low to the ground......

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

You mean like the oxides of carbon.  Colourless, odourless, and not life supporting.  Detectors and alarms are necessary.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Sea ice in the Arctic seen to diminish over the last three years.

 

This along with other evidence of the shrinkage of global ice fields is a pretty good verification that things are warming up,eh?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Personal robotic assistant for labour intensive jobs.

[AkemiAzula 280]

Personal robotic assistant for labour intensive jobs.

That's a good idea. I've done plenty of heavy lifting in my time as a volunteer unskilled worker. Just the other day I was painting lines for a carpark at work using two slabs of concrete to weigh down a stencil frame of wood they knocked up. Even that is enough to give the back something to worry about when you walk a good distance with it. Today a female worker asked me to carry a trug of wet soil to the compost heap because she couldn't lift it. I was glad to oblige but even I thought I wasn't doing my back any favours.