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Science (General/Chat)

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  • Why is Jeff Bezos building a giant ‘millennial' clock inside a mountain? [$42M!]

    02/21/2018 7:18:04 AM PST · by Red Badger · 70 replies
    www.techradar.com ^ | 21 Feb 2018 | By Jamie Carter
    The Long Now Foundation’s clock is a symbol for multi-generational thinking Jeff Bezos wants us all to be good ancestors. The Amazon supremo just tweeted that installation has begun on one of his pet projects of the last decade, the 10,000 Year Clock, also called the Clock of the Long Now. Designed to stay accurate for that huge time period, the giant clock will tick once a year, moving its century hand every 100 years, and send out a cuckoo once a millennia – just 10 times in its life. And it costs US$ 42 million. What is Bezos thinking?...
  • Researchers discover novel mechanism linking changes in mitochondria to cancer cell death

    02/20/2018 11:06:47 AM PST · by Red Badger · 7 replies
    medicalxpress.com ^ | February 20, 2018 | by Deanna Csomo Mccool, University of Notre Dame
    Credit: University of Notre Dame ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ o stop the spread of cancer, cancer cells must die. Unfortunately, many types of cancer cells seem to use innate mechanisms that block cancer cell death, therefore allowing the cancer to metastasize. While seeking to further understand cancer cell death, researchers at the University of Notre Dame discovered that the activation of a specific enzyme may help suppress the spread of tumors. The findings, published in Nature Cell Biology, demonstrate that the enzyme RIPK1 decreases the number of mitochondria in a cell. This loss of mitochondria leads to oxidative stress that can potentially...
  • Indonesia's Sinabung volcano unleashes towering ash column

    02/19/2018 6:42:53 PM PST · by MtnClimber · 19 replies
    Circa ^ | 19 Feb, 2018 | ASSOCIATED PRESS 0
    <p>JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Rumbling Mount Sinabung on the Indonesian island of Sumatra shot billowing columns of ash more than 5,000 meters (16,400 feet) into the atmosphere and hot clouds down its slopes on Monday.</p> <p>Indonesia's Mount Sinabung started erupting on Monday, the biggest eruption of the volcano so far in 2018.</p>
  • 12 World Secrets That We Will Never Know The Truth About

    02/19/2018 6:14:36 PM PST · by SunkenCiv · 65 replies
    Aunty Acid ^ | dunno | beats me
    If you’re a lover of a good mystery, then get a load of some of these amazing phenomena! Some people think we’re not meant to understand everything in the world and in the universe. Others think there’s a logical explanation for everything. We just think that there are some amazing mysteries in the world that are waiting to be solved. So take a look at some of these X-files, you’ll definitely be scratching your head. Maybe you’ll wonder how you never heard of them before… and maybe question, just who is keeping this so quiet? ... 9. Red glow over...
  • Mysterious Stone Labyrinths of Bolshoi Zayatsky Island

    02/19/2018 4:40:20 PM PST · by SunkenCiv · 16 replies
    Weird Russia ^ | 2015 | unattributed
    Exact purpose of these ancient stone constructions is unknown. The main assumption is that they, perhaps, symbolized a border between the world we live in and the world of spirits. Labyrinths were used for rituals to help souls to cross over to the other world. Other hypothesis is that labyrinths, perhaps, served as fishing traps. However, the major flaw in this argument is that many labyrinths have been found inland throughout the world... After entering a labyrinth and circle several times around the center, you leave it through the same entrance. Just after several turns it becomes unclear how much...
  • The Little Rover That Could

    02/19/2018 1:57:07 PM PST · by Red Badger · 5 replies
    Popular Science ^ | February 17, 2018 | By Mary Beth Griggs
    We think you can, Opportunity. An artist's impression of the Opportunity rover on Mars. NASA _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ NASA’s Opportunity rover is the longest surviving rover on Mars. On Saturday, February 17, it experienced its 5,000th dawn on a distant planet. It was only scheduled to see 90. But Opportunity's long journey started much earlier, at the height of the space race. With gratitude towards Watty Piper and his beloved Little Engine, we start our story in the early 1960s. NASA is working on multiple fronts, pushing humans toward the Moon for the first time, but also struggling to reach Mars and...
  • The hypercar that hits 0-60mph in UNDER two seconds: Incredible electric Japanese car Aspark Owl

    02/19/2018 11:30:18 AM PST · by Red Badger · 36 replies
    www.dailymail.co.uk ^ | Updated: 11:22 EST, 19 February 2018 | By Connor Boyd
    Electric Aspark Owl prototype has 430 horsepower, 563 all-wheel lb-ft torque and weighs less than 860kg The Japanese company claim the video is proof that the car can achieve 'impossible' sub-two-second mark Apark say they will only make 50 units of the vehicle and customers will need to fork out £3million for one ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ A small engineering company in Japan claims it has produced the world's first street-legal car capable of hitting 0-60mph in under two seconds. The Aspark Owl was launched at the Frankfurt Auto Show last year and its creators said it would have 430 horsepower, 563 all-wheel...
  • Paleomagnetism Study Supports Pyramid Man-Made Stone

    02/19/2018 7:14:43 AM PST · by SunkenCiv · 43 replies
    www.davidovits.info ^ | Friday, February 1, 2013 | Joseph Davidovits
    A recent scientific study published in the renown "Europhysics News", The Magazine of the European Physical Society, (2012), Vol. 43, number 6, described how paleomagnetism study on several pyramid stones demonstrates the validity of Davidovits' theory on the artificial nature of Egyptian pyramid stones. ...Dr. Igor Túnyi ...and Ibrahim A. El-hemaly... made the following assumption (quote from their scientific paper): Our paleomagnetic investigation of the two great Egyptian pyramids, Kufu and Khafre, is based on the assumption that if the blocks were made in situ by the geopolymer concrete technique described above, then their magnetic moments would all have been...
  • Stronger Than Steel, Able to Stop a Speeding Bullet—It’s Super Wood!

    02/18/2018 11:28:50 PM PST · by LibWhacker · 70 replies
    Scientific American ^ | 2/7/18 | Sid Perkins
    Simple processes can make wood tough, impact-resistant—or even transparent Some varieties of wood, such as oak and maple, are renowned for their strength. But scientists say a simple and inexpensive new process can transform any type of wood into a material stronger than steel, and even some high-tech titanium alloys. Besides taking a star turn in buildings and vehicles, the substance could even be used to make bullet-resistant armor plates. Wood is abundant and relatively low-cost—it literally grows on trees. And although it has been used for millennia to build everything from furniture to homes and larger structures, untreated wood...
  • New Developments in Twistor Theory

    02/18/2018 6:58:14 PM PST · by Voption · 19 replies
    "Palatial Twistor Theory; in order to describe a general, Lorentzian, globally hyper-bolic 4-dimensional space-time in twistor terms, we appear to be driven to a holomorphic non-commutative twistor-geometry, even for Classical space-time."
  • Micro To Macro Mapping -- Observing Past Landscapes Via Remote-sensing

    02/18/2018 3:55:08 PM PST · by SunkenCiv · 3 replies
    Popular Archaeology ^ | Friday, February 09, 2018 | University of Cambridge news release
    Remotely detecting changes in landforms has long relied upon the interpretation of aerial and satellite images... More recently, data produced by photogrammetry and Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) models have become commonplace for those involved in geographical analysis - engineers, hydrologists, landscape architects and archaeologists... In new research published this week in the journal Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, Cambridge archaeologists present a new algorithm, Multi-Scale Relief Model (MSRM), which is able to extract micro-topographic information at a variety of scales employing micro-, meso- and large-scale digital surface (DSM) and digital terrain (DTM) models... The TwoRains multitemporal remote sensing approach...
  • Scientists Create a New Form of Light by Linking Photons

    02/18/2018 1:01:40 PM PST · by BenLurkin · 28 replies
    In new experiments, however, the physicists coaxed individual photons to cozy up to each other and link, similar to the way individual atoms stick together in molecules. The photon dance happens in a lab at MIT where the physicists run table-top experiments with lasers. Cantu, his colleague Aditya Venkatramani, a Ph.D. candidate in atomic physics at Harvard University, and their collaborators start by creating a cloud of chilled rubidium atoms. Rubidium is an alkali metal so it typically looks like a silver-white solid. But vaporizing rubidium with a laser and keeping it ultracold creates a cloud the researchers contain in...
  • God vs. Evolution in U.S. Public Schools - William Jennings Bryan in 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial

    02/18/2018 12:17:33 PM PST · by GoldenState_Rose · 23 replies
    Cal State ^ | 1925 | William Jennings Bryan
    Religion is not hostile to learning; Christianity has been the greatest patron learning has ever had. But Christians know that "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" now just as it has been in the past, and they therefore oppose the teaching of guesses that encourage godlessness among the students. Do bad doctrines corrupt the morals of students? We have a case, Mr. Darrow, one of the most distinguished criminal lawyers in our land, was engaged about a year ago in defending two rich men's sons who were on trial for as dastardly a murder as was...
  • Plagiarism Software Unveils a New Source for 11 of Shakespeare’s Plays

    02/18/2018 12:09:16 PM PST · by onedoug · 64 replies
    New York Times ^ | Feb 7 2108 | MICHAEL BLANDING
    For years scholars have debated what inspired William Shakespeare’s writings. Now, with the help of software typically used by professors to nab cheating students, two writers have discovered an unpublished manuscript they believe the Bard of Avon consulted to write “King Lear,” “Macbeth,” “Richard III,” “Henry V” and seven other plays. The news has caused Shakespeareans to sit up and take notice.
  • Stephen Hawking Turns 75; And How Has Hawking Survived So Long? (trunc)

    02/18/2018 4:44:51 AM PST · by sodpoodle · 34 replies
    Medical Daily ^ | 1/7/2017 | Dana Dovey
    January 8 is Stephen Hawking’s 75th birthday, an age particularly remarkable for a man living with a form of the motor-neuron disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). In celebration of Hawking’s remarkable life achievement despite his severe disability, let’s have a look at the disease that we’ve come to so closely associate with this brilliant mind.
  • Report: Modern Culture Is Not Just Revealing Transgenders, ‘It Is Creating Them’

    02/17/2018 8:17:51 PM PST · by EdnaMode · 42 replies
    Breitbart ^ | February 17, 2018 | Thomas D. Williams, PH.D.
    All scientific evidence indicates that gender identity disorders result principally from cultural causes and moreover, modern society is facilitating them, according to an analysis published Friday. Writing for the Catholic World Report, Anne Hendershott chronicles an exploding “transgender industry” illustrated by a massive surge in the number of referrals for gender-identity treatment, in some cases increasing by as much as 2800 percent in less than ten years. Western societies such as the UK, Sweden, Australia, and the USA have seen a spectacular rise in the number of persons, especially young people, seeking treatment for gender identity issues, paralleling the attention...
  • 'False Hope': Hysterectomy Treatment for Endometriosis Is No Cure-All

    02/17/2018 2:59:44 PM PST · by nickcarraway · 15 replies
    The Age | 18 February 2018 | Mary Ward
    'False Hope': Hysterectomy Treatment for Endometriosis Is No Cure-All
  • Laser scanning reveals 'lost' ancient Mexican city 'had as many buildings as Manhattan'

    02/17/2018 10:15:51 AM PST · by mairdie · 48 replies
    The Guardian ^ | 15 Feb 2018 | Nicola Davis
    The approach, known as light detection and ranging scanning (lidar) involves directing a rapid succession of laser pulses at the ground from an aircraft. The time and wavelength of the pulses reflected by the surface are combined with GPS and other data to produce a precise, three-dimensional map of the landscape. Crucially, the technique probes beneath foliage - useful for areas where vegetation is dense. ... The team also found that Angamuco has an unusual layout. Monuments such as pyramids and open plazas are largely concentrated in eight zones around the city's edges, rather being located in one large city...
  • Stunning image of a single strontium atom wins British photography prize

    02/17/2018 5:06:52 AM PST · by Leaning Right · 37 replies
    National Post ^ | February 14, 2018 | Joseph Brean
    One of the strangest things about the gorgeous photo of an atom that has just won a British science photography prize is that you cannot take a photo of an atom. It is just impossible. And yet, there it is, a strontium atom, like a little round dot, shining clear as day. The image is called “Single Atom in an Ion Trap.”
  • Good Fats, Bad Fats

    02/16/2018 9:38:07 PM PST · by nickcarraway · 17 replies
    New York Times ^ | Jan. 29, 2018 | Jane E. Brody
    The media love contrarian man-bites-dog stories that purport to debunk long-established beliefs and advice. Among the most popular on the health front are reports that saturated fats do not cause heart disease and that the vegetable oils we’ve been encouraged to use instead may actually promote it. But the best-established facts on dietary fats say otherwise. How well polyunsaturated vegetable oils hold up health-wise when matched against saturated fats like butter, beef fat, lard and even coconut oil depends on the quality, size and length of the studies and what foods are eaten when fewer saturated fats are consumed. So...