Interesting Science Stuff Thread

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Methane on Mars!?

 

"Old one" farts?  They'd better watch out.  Look how well elephants hide in cherry trees.

[Terring 6,473]

The Science and Science Fiction of SimCity: Cities of Tomorrow

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I hate to burst your bubble, you giant skyscrapers of the future bunch, but it is unlikely to happen, especially in coastal cities.  These soaring towers of Coruscant just won't happen for several reasons:

 

1. Rising sea levels will drown cities like New York and New Orleans, to say nothing of Galveston, LA, and San Diego.
    
2. As more and more people become interested in living off the grid, cities will tend to spread out, not concentrate.
    
3. There is a strong trend now to cottage industry (work from home), and this removes a large reason for corporate towers.
    
4. The trend is towards a spread-out corporate campus.

 

My favourite SF author, Isaac Asimov, explored both scenarios in one extended novel:  The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun.  The first was about a planet where the city enclosed everyone;  the second had no cities at all and everyone lived in isolation communicating only over the Internet and never 'seeing' anyone except to reproduce which was considered distasteful but necessary.

 

As usual, mankind will find a middle way.  People heaps are obsolete.

[KonstantinII 1,106]

 

 

1. Rising sea levels will drown cities like New York and New Orleans, to say nothing of Galveston, LA, and San Diego.

    

 

Simple, if downtown New York is under water, you just build a new metropolis some miles inland, where the sea level stops.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

 

 

 

1. Rising sea levels will drown cities like New York and New Orleans, to say nothing of Galveston, LA, and San Diego.

    

 

Simple, if downtown New York is under water, you just build a new metropolis some miles inland, where the sea level stops.

 

Using what money?  You don't think insurance will cover such losses, do you?  I won't, but you may well live to enjoy the New York Archipelago.

[KonstantinII 1,106]

The Science and Science Fiction of SimCity: Cities of Tomorrow

 

Here is another interesting article.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/games/9280798/Sneak-peek-SimCity-Cities-Of-Tomorrow

[hym 358]

There is a strong trend now to cottage industry (work from home), and this removes a large reason for corporate towers.

 

I have to ask where this strong trend is.  Relatively few Americans are allowed to work from home (and many simply can't because the work doesn't permit it).  For a lot of Americans, "working from home" means something like "I'm sick with the flu, so I'm going to take work home and do it there so I don't infect the rest of the office."

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

If you follow the local press up here in the frozen north, you'll find a large number of businesses that essentially run on the Internet.  Maybe it has something to do with the climate. 

 

As I view the future, I have a feeling that people heaps are on the way out.  As technology leans more and more towards holographics and digital manufacturing, we seem to be entering a new era of employment.  The rational for the rush hour is going away, to say nothing of the high infrastructure and human costs.

 

Maybe, being outside the mainstream now for as long as I have been, I am being a bit of a Pollyanna with respect to this, but personal presence on a daily basis is for worker ants, and there are fewer and fewer of those each decade.  Automation with instant communications is only the tip of the iceberg for most business.  Roaring off across the world for a face to face conference is going to become rarer and rarer as costs escalate, especially the cost of transportation.

 

I expect cities to shrink and the "wide open spaces" to become more and more occupied with scattered clusters of convenience.  It is better to walk to work than face a one or two hour commute.

[Terring 6,473]

MIT Developing Ionic Wind Thrusters as Efficient Alternative to Jet Engines

A team from MIT is working on developing ionic wind thrusters as an energy-efficient, low-emission alternative to conventional propulsion technologies like jet engines. The new thrusters would use ionic energy, which is created when a current passes between two electrodes. If one electrode is thinner than the other, it creates an air current in the space between them – and if a substantial voltage is applied, the device could produce powerful thrust without the need for fuel or motors.
 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Well, the juice has to come from somewhere.  How efficient would this engine be if the only source was ambient radiation?

[Terring 6,473]

A comic about vaccines that everybody should read

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

^ Agreed.  My latest immunizations include this year's flu shot.  Last year I got a pneumonia immunization (good for 3 years).  I was offered a shingles shot, but I've had both chicken pox and shingles.  I am told shingles can recur.  At age 77 I have chosen to take my chances, at least until the price of the vaccine comes down to something less than three weeks groceries.

 

Managing your health requires informed consent.  Remember, medicine is still an art even if completely surrounded by science and trappings of science.  I have an irregular heart beat and the cardiologist wants to schedule me to be shocked back into a normal rhythm.  This will happen sometime in January at a time to be scheduled.  Sometimes, a simple injection is nothing compared to a procedure than leaves you feeling as if you'd been kicked by a herd of Clydesdales.  Meanwhile, blood thinners (advanced ones) and digoxin along with the rest of my survival drugs.  And, of course, any exertion and I am out of breath.  Life goes on.

[Terring 6,473]

50 Science Misconceptions

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Cute.  If you know enough history of the Greeks and Arabs, you will find that their sciences were nearly as good or better than ours.  I wonder what happened?  Religion or just ossification of the intellect?

[Peorth 17]

A lot of those misconceptions aren't misconceptions for me, I guess because the sciences has always been my strong suit. I don't get the bald eagle thing though cause there aren't any of those where I live. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

AFAIK the Bald Eagle isn't an eagle at all, but a vulture.

[NMUSpidey 3,956]

AFAIK the Bald Eagle isn't an eagle at all, but a vulture.

 

Not according to Wikipedia.  Classified as a sea eagle, apparently.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Well, I stand corrected.  Around here they scavenge, probably because there isn't all that much open water except for Lake Huron.

[blade2k5 1,523]

^ Agreed.  My latest immunizations include this year's flu shot.  Last year I got a pneumonia immunization (good for 3 years).  I was offered a shingles shot, but I've had both chicken pox and shingles.  I am told shingles can recur.  At age 77 I have chosen to take my chances, at least until the price of the vaccine comes down to something less than three weeks groceries.

 

Managing your health requires informed consent.  Remember, medicine is still an art even if completely surrounded by science and trappings of science.  I have an irregular heart beat and the cardiologist wants to schedule me to be shocked back into a normal rhythm.  This will happen sometime in January at a time to be scheduled.  Sometimes, a simple injection is nothing compared to a procedure than leaves you feeling as if you'd been kicked by a herd of Clydesdales.  Meanwhile, blood thinners (advanced ones) and digoxin along with the rest of my survival drugs.  And, of course, any exertion and I am out of breath.  Life goes on.

 

I've never had a flu shot in my life, even as a kid and have had the flu maybe six times in my 50+ years of life.  Even when I do get the flu, it lasts maybe 36 hours and is gone as soon as it came while everyone else who gets the same flu are out of whack for a few days.  I guess I still have a pretty strong immune system for a younger old fart.  

 

Case in point, some of you who remember my kidney issues a few years ago remember that my blood pressure was 286/220 and I don't think I've seen a group of doctors freak out as much as they did with eyes as big as saucer plates.  Well, I found out that I've had this issue since the day I was born and it has never affected me in anyway.  Strange don't you think?

[Easy Bakes 253]

you BP is 286/220 all the time?

[blade2k5 1,523]

you BP is 286/220 all the time?

 

Pretty much.  Sometimes a bit lower, but not by much.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Holy cow!  They have me on a set of drugs that keeps mine in the 130/70 range.  You must have arteries like fire hoses.

 

As for the flu, I haven't had it since I started taking the shots.

[Peorth 17]

 

you BP is 286/220 all the time?

 

Pretty much.  Sometimes a bit lower, but not by much.

 

That BP is ridiculous and frankly not something to be proud of. You'll end up having a stroke, heart attack or renal failure one of these days, and if you don't then count yourself extremely lucky.

[blade2k5 1,523]

Holy cow!  They have me on a set of drugs that keeps mine in the 130/70 range.  You must have arteries like fire hoses.

 

As for the flu, I haven't had it since I started taking the shots.

 

My body does give off a lot of heat, which comes in handy on those brutally cold winter nights.

 

 

 

 

you BP is 286/220 all the time?

 

Pretty much.  Sometimes a bit lower, but not by much.

 

That BP is ridiculous and frankly not something to be proud of. You'll end up having a stroke, heart attack or renal failure one of these days, and if you don't then count yourself extremely lucky.

 

 

Yawn. 

[hym 358]

Scientific breakthroughs don't happen very often, but when they do, it's pretty cool...

 

Antibiotics: US discovery labelled 'game-changer' for medicine

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

A bacterium that can produce anti-bodies that kill things like MRSA would most certainly fill the current void.

[Terring 6,473]

Amazing ERO Concrete-Recycling Robot Can Erase Entire Buildings

Why demolish, when you can just erase?

 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The article makes no cost comparisons.

[Peorth 17]

A bacterium that can produce anti-bodies that kill things like MRSA would most certainly fill the current void.

 

Actually bacteria don't secrete antibodies, antibodies are only made by more advanced life forms (fish, birds, mammals, etc). The stuff they make is the antibiotic itself. This goes all the way back to Alexander Fleming; he noted that when the mold Penicillium grew on a Petri dish bacteria couldn't grow near it, creating a clearing or "halo" around the mold. He hypothesized correctly that the mold was inhibiting bacterial growth and thus penicillin, the first antibiotic, was discovered.

 

Regarding that article, I read it a couple of days ago. The graph showing antibiotic discovery ending at 1987 for lipopeptides is plainly wrong. The oxazolidinone class of antibiotics was discovered in the 1990s and the first antibiotic of this class, linezolid was approved in 2000. The second one, tedizolid was just approved by the U.S. FDA in June 2014. Both drugs are used for MRSA and other nasty bugs like vancomycin resistant enterococci (VRE). Thus the "discovery void" shown there is unnecessarily alarmist and seems to imply absolutely no new antibiotics have been developed since 1987 when this is actually untrue.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

And the mass of the slow photons is??

 

I would dearly love to see a lab in another part of the world duplicate this.