Free Republic

To make fusion reactors, we need materials that can withstand its punishing environment, and a new Chinese-made material can survive reactors’ intense conditions. Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story: * The central solenoid is the heart of a fusion reactor, and a "jacket" of meticulously crafted stainless steel—capable of withstanding extreme temperatures and magnetic fields—protects it. * Chinese scientists say that a new super steel, called China high-strength low-temperature steel No. 1, (CHSN01), can operate at a maximum of 20 Tesla, which outperforms the steel jacket that will be used by ITER. * China is incorporating CHSN01...

Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:An Australian scientist says probabilities are the leading cause of the Bermuda Triangle disappearances. And he’s not the only one.Add in suspect weather, and iffy plane and boat piloting, and Karl Kruszelnicki believes there’s no reason to believe in the Bermuda Triangle phenomenon.While the conspiracy of the Bermuda Triangle has existed for decades, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association and Lloyd’s of London has long championed the same ideas.Pick any one of the more than 50 ships or 20 planes that have disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle in the last century. Each...

Using Google Earth, Justin Myers found some anomalies near Nikumaroro Island that he thinks are strikingly similar to Earhart’s lost plane. Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story: * A pilot perusing Google Earth may have stumbled across the remnants of Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10E * Inspired by a documentary on the final flight of Earhart and Fred Noonan, Justin Myers compared the measurements of anomalies in a Google Earth image to the components of the Earhart plane * Thus far, no major institutions have made any effort to investigate his claims =========================================================================== What would you do...

Children are always picking stuff up off the ground -- dirt, bugs, rocks, anything shiny. And usually, it's just junk. However, 3-year-old Ziv Nitzan made the discovery of her young life when, on a walk with her family, she picked up a small stone that wound up being a scarab amulet more than one thousand times her age."We were walking along the path, and then Ziv bent down and out of all the stones around her, she picked up this particular stone," Omer Nitzan, Ziv's sister, said in a translated statement from the Israel Antiquities Authority...The family brought in the...

Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story: * A new tomb was discovered at Petra’s Khazneh, one of the New Seven Wonders of the World. * The tomb’s discovery, as revealed on Discovery Channel’s “Expedition Unknown,” also included 12 skeletons from over 2,000 years ago. * In addition to being a true archaeological marvel, the ornate facade of Jordan’s ancient city of Petra has served as a backdrop in a number of movies, including “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.” ============================================================= The sandstone cliff faces of the ancient city of Petra (one of the New Seven Wonders of...

His expedition found a “mountain of gold” at the bottom of the Atlantic. But he might never see a cent of the lost fortune. It was late in the summer of 1988 when Tommy Thompson finally located a big rusty paddle wheel buried in ocean floor sediment. Now he was banking on an even bigger discovery: a cache of 19th-century gold worth as much as half a billion dollars. On September 11, Thompson and a crew of explorers hunkered down aboard the Arctic Discoverer, a retrofitted Canadian icebreaking ship about 160 miles east of South Carolina. There they deployed an...

Art imitates life ... maybe.There’s something intriguing, even frightening, about the image of an ancient horned serpent roaming across the land. Thanks to some suggestive fossils and legends of old, talk of such a creature isn’t a new concept. But the recent discovery of 200-year-old rock paintings found in South Africa now has scientists hypothesizing that this ancient creature may have been far more than just a legend. The first formal scientific descriptions of this horned serpent—a supposed member of the dicynodont group—appeared in 1845. Considering the abundance of dicynodont fossils found in the Karoo Basin in South Africa, some...

The atomic energy of betavoltaic batteries can power a variety of devices, from aerospace and robots to your future smartphone, for up to a century without recharging. ================================================================== In the world of batteries, duration is king. Whether nestled in the smallest wearable or providing back-up power for the electric grid, a battery that provides reliable energy for longer will always outlast the competition—figuratively and literally. The U.S. led the way in nuclear battery innovation over the past 70 years—and even developed the first battery that ran on nuclear radiation in the 1950s. But in the 21st century, China has become...

Dark matter could be the result of fermions pushed into a warped fifth dimension. This theory builds on an idea first stated in 1999, but is unique in its findings. Dark matter makes up 75 percent of matter but has never been observed ... yet. Scientists say they can explain dark matter by positing a particle that links to a fifth dimension. While the “warped extra dimension” (WED) is a trademark of a popular physics model first introduced in 1999, this research, published in The European Physical Journal C, is the first to cohesively use the theory to explain the...

Chronicling the changes in the Titanic has shown a 15-foot-long section of the port side of the bow's railing has fallen to the seafloor.Researchers have uncovered the bronze "Diana of Versailles" statuette, once a centerpiece in the doomed Titanic's first class lounge, and now mired in oceanic muck. It marks the first sighting of the Roman goddess Diana statue since 1986 and highlights the sunken ship's ongoing decay.The Georgia-based RMS Titanic, Inc. has the only legal salvage claim to the Titanic, the famous British passenger liner that struck an iceberg and tragically sank on April 14, 1912. A 2024 expedition...

Breakthrough evidence likely reveals the final resting place of the HMS Endeavour. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Nearly two years after an Australian research team made the claim that a Rhode Island shipwreck was Captain Cook’s HMS Endeavour, the team says they have more evidence to back up their assertion. A Rhode Island-based research group originally said it was too premature to call the shipwreck Cook’s vessel. New findings regarding the pump well and bow further point to this ship in fact being HMS Endeavour. Residents of New England and those with British ties are once again in a scuffle. This time, the debate...

This holographic concept could explain a mystery about black holes, but the math may not represent reality.As theoretical physics delves deeper into the fundamental nature of reality, we’re left to grapple with the questions it leaves us. For example, some physicists claim that our universe is merely an illusion, a product of quantum machinations happening in a lower-dimensional setting—in other words, a hologram. Black Holes May Be Evidence The trouble began with those bothersome boogeymen of the cosmos, black holes. On the surface (and careful readers will be rewarded later with the realization that this is a pun), black holes...

So, Elon Musk isn’t your ideal corporate leader, and you want to delete Twitter? You’re not alone. Since the Tesla CEO completed his $44 billion acquisition of the social media site in late October, Twitter may have lost more than one million users, according to estimates from Bot Sentinel, a company that tracks behavior on Twitter. If you’re concerned about hate speech and disinformation, or you’re just not excited about the potential of shelling out cash to secure your blue checkmark, simply avoid the platform altogether. We’ve got you covered for both how to delete your Twitter account and where...

On a four-mile rural road eerily nicknamed the Devil's Promenade, just off the old Route 66 in the north-east corner of Oklahoma, a paranormal mystery has puzzled spirit seekers for more than 100 years. The Hornet Spook Light – a mysterious, basketball-sized glowing orb named for the former town of Hornet – has been appearing in the night sky here since 1881. No-one knows what this peculiar, smouldering ball of light signifies, where it comes from or what it's composed of. Even the Army Corps of Engineers have concluded that it's a "mysterious light of unknown origin". It moves, spinning...

Intelligent Life Really Can’t Exist Anywhere Else Hell, our own evolution on Earth was pure luck. In research published in 2020 from Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute, scientists study the likelihood of key times for evolution of life on Earth and conclude that it would be virtually impossible for that life to evolve the same way somewhere else. Life has come a very long way in a very short time on Earth, relatively speaking—and scientists say that represents even more improbable luck for intelligent life that is rare to begin with. For decades, scientists and even philosophers have chased...

A team of international scientists compared the temperature of cosmic gas farther away from Earth (and, therefore, farther back in time) to younger gases nearer to our planet and to the present day. According to their calculations, in the past 10 billion years, the mean temperature of these gases has increased by more than 10 times,

President Donald Trump, when asked about a new Pentagon task force for studying UFOs, replied that he would look into it—and then began boasting about the power of the U.S. military. Some observers saw this as Trump touting his funding of the Department of Defense, while others saw it as a threat to extraterrestrial beings. In an interview on Sunday, Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo asked Trump, “Can you explain why the Department of Defense has set up a UFO task force? Are there UFOs?” “Well, I'm going to have to check on that,” Trump replied. “I mean, I've heard...

The amazing feat only happened once. In 1985, a F-15A Eagle fitted with a classified missile shot down an aging weather satellite. The test of the Anti-Satellite (ASAT) was considered a huge success. Task & Purpose has published a rare interview with the pilot who flew the mission 35 years ago. ============================================================================================== One of the most remarkable feats of military engineering during the Cold War was the shootdown of an actual satellite by a fighter jet. The incident was the first and only use of the AGM-135 anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon. Although anti-satellite weapon development slowed after the end of the...

A key F-35 safety system is sustaining damage in Air Force service, forcing the office that overseas the F-35 program to recommend flight restrictions. Under the new guidelines, F-35 jets should socially distance from lightning, maintaining a distance of least 25 miles. The faulty systems could cause a F-35 hit by lightning to literally explode in midair. ================================================================================================= The F-35 Lightning II strike fighter is temporarily barred from flying near actual lightning. More than a dozen Air Force F-35s were discovered with damage to a system designed to prevent catastrophic damage from lightning strikes. The damaged systems place the aircraft...

Now it’s Unpopular Mechanics. Popular Mechanics magazine has come under fire after publishing a detailed guide on toppling monuments. “Bring that sucker down without anyone getting hurt,” the article posted Monday encourages readers, promising the best advice on “how to topple a statue using science.” Author James Stout says his article is inspired by the worldwide attacks on “problematic monuments” tied to the “legacy of racism” amid ongoing protests. “Should you happen to find yourself near a statue that you decide you no longer like, we asked scientists for the best, safest ways to bring it to the ground without...