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Science (General/Chat)

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  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - A Golden Corona Eclipse

    08/17/2026 12:54:01 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 7 replies
    NASA ^ | 17 Aug, 2026 | Image Credit & Copyright: Rui Santos (Living Impressions)
    Explanation: This total solar eclipse appeared not only poetically beautiful but scientifically interesting. Usually the solar corona appears white, and to some observers the corona of last week's total solar eclipse did appear this pearly color. But this time, totality observers in Spain saw a corona that appeared unusually golden. For one reason, from Spain, the totality occurred when the setting Sun was near the horizon. That low, sunlight travels through a large amount of air which scatters out blue light. An unusual amount of smoke in the air from nearby forest fires acted as a second filter, further scattering...
  • Human Skull Found Among 3,000-Year-Old Remains at Archaeological Site

    08/17/2026 12:36:08 PM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 15 replies
    People ^ | July 26, 2026 | Latoya Gayle
    Archaeologists in El Salvador are examining a discovery that may date back to around 850 B.C. According to a news release from El Salvador's Ministry of Culture, a pre-Hispanic burial site was found in Antiguo Cuscatlán, a suburb of San Salvador, earlier this month. An excavation of the remains began on July 21... A human skull was found alongside a small Usulután ceramic vessel shaped like a sea turtle, per the news release. Layers of volcanic ash also preserved the remnants of cassava branches... The remains, which were found face down, are set to undergo radiocarbon dating to determine their...
  • If other countries give fewer shots, why can’t we ask why?

    08/17/2026 11:39:44 AM PDT · by SeekAndFind · 19 replies
    American Thinker ^ | 08/16/26 | Jack Hellner
    Do other countries ignore science when they have fewer shots?By age 18, a child in the United States can receive roughly 30 to 75 total vaccine doses if they follow standard schedules and get annual flu shots. Fewer shots are needed because vaccines are combined. By comparison, in Germany, the Robert Koch Institute (via the Standing Committee on Vaccination, STIKO) recommends routine protection against about 12 to 15 infectious diseases for children. Because Germany relies heavily on multi-component combination shots (like the 6-in-1 hexavalent vaccine), children receive roughly 11 to 14 actual physical injections. Elsewhere in Europe, in England,...
  • A Roman Mask BURIED on a Remote Viking Island... but why? [6:14]

    08/17/2026 11:20:45 AM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 19 replies
    YouTube ^ | August 13, 2026 | Adam Morgan Ibbotson
    A Roman cavalry mask. Found on the remote Baltic island of Gotland. Altered centuries later, with its right eye deliberately removed and buried beneath a longhouse -- possibly echoing Odin's sacrifice of his eye for knowledge. But why was a Roman object, made hundreds of miles away, being ritually transformed in Scandinavia? And what does it have to do with Sutton Hoo, Anglo-Saxon England, Viking helmets and the strange movement of Roman culture across Europe? The Hellvi Mask may be one of the missing links between Rome, Scandinavia and the warrior culture of early medieval Britain. A Roman Mask BURIED...
  • Trepanned skull of Viking-era man found in mass grave

    08/17/2026 7:59:22 AM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 47 replies
    BBC ^ | February 4, 2026 | Katy Prickett
    The skeleton of a young 6ft 5in-tall (1.9m) Viking-era man who had undergone trepanation has been found in a mass grave.A hole had been bored in his skull while he was alive. It had signs of healing before his remains were flung into a burial pit with nine other men, some dismembered...The grisly discoveries were found during a University of Cambridge training dig just outside the city last year...If the young man had had a tumour on his pituitary gland, this could have caused an excess of growth which might explain his height, explained Biers, curator of the Duckworth Collections...
  • D.C. Circuit Endangerment Finding Litigation: The Stall Is On

    08/17/2026 5:12:09 AM PDT · by MtnClimber · 6 replies
    Manhattan Contrarian ^ | 13 Aug, 2026 | Francis Menton
    The Endangerment Finding (EF) is the completely absurd piece of regulatory overreach by which the Obama EPA in December 2009 purported to determine that the trace atmospheric gas carbon dioxide was a “danger to human health and welfare.” That action may have been absurd, but it was by no means benign. CO2 is a principal product of all combustion of fossil fuels. Following on the EF, EPA and other government agencies in the Obama and then Biden Administrations set out to use the EF as the basis to transform our entire energy economy — suppressing drilling, blocking pipelines, forcing closure...
  • Finding the Lost City of Troy (Full Episode) | Legend of Troy | National Geographic [44:15]

    08/16/2026 6:28:29 PM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 3 replies
    YouTube ^ | August 13, 2026 | National Geographic
    Written in ancient Greek poet Homer's "The Odyssey" and "The Iliad," the legends of the Trojan War and the lost city of Troy were believed to be nothing more than myth for centuries. But in 1860, a millionaire named Heinrich Schliemann set out on a relentless quest to prove the legends were real, uncovering ancient secrets and sparking a golden age of archaeology. In this full episode of The Legend of Troy: Epic Rise and Fall from National Geographic, explore ancient civilization and early archaeology in episode one, "The Schliemann Legacy." Finding the Lost City of Troy (Full Episode) |...
  • I Found the Original 1790s Boundary Stones That Established DC | Journey With Murphy [22:37]

    08/16/2026 3:12:22 PM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 30 replies
    YouTube ^ | August 3, 2026 | Journey With Murphy
    In 1791, before Washington DC became the capital of the United States, surveyors placed a series of 40 boundary stones to mark the original 100-square-mile District of Columbia. Today, many of those historic markers still survive -- hidden in neighborhoods, parks, and along roads around the capital. Join me as I drive around Virginia, Maryland, and Washington DC searching for these forgotten pieces of American history and visit several of the original boundary markers placed between 1791 and 1792. These stones witnessed the birth of the nation's capital and are some of the oldest surviving monuments connected to the creation...
  • Tropical storm Lala kills 1, sweeps away homes as flooding hits Hawaii

    08/16/2026 1:36:37 PM PDT · by Libloather · 21 replies
    NY Post ^ | 8/16/26 | Joe Burn, Associated Press
    At least one person was killed in a storm-related car crash on Hawaii’s Big Island as Hurricane Lala struck late Saturday night. Gov. Josh Green confirmed the death, along with 19 roofs ripped off buildings after what he described as an “enormous storm.” Powerful waves pounded the Big Island’s coast as Lala slowly passed by. Howling winds whipped palm trees and waterways swelled with fast-moving runoff from relentless rain that blew nearly sideways. Lala was downgraded to a tropical storm as of Sunday morning, according to the National Hurricane Center. More than 130,000 households were without power Sunday morning across...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - Milky Way over Yellowstone

    08/16/2026 11:04:32 AM PDT · by MtnClimber · 15 replies
    NASA ^ | 16 Aug, 2026 | Image Credit & Copyright: Dave Lane
    Explanation: The Milky Way was not created by an evaporating lake. The colorful pool of water, about 10 meters across, is known as Silex Spring and is located in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, USA. Illuminated artificially, the colors are caused by layers of bacteria that grow in the hot spring. Steam rises off the spring, heated by underground magma associated with the Yellowstone Hotspot. Unrelated and far in the distance, the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy arches high overhead, a band lit by billions of stars. The picture features a 16-image panorama taken in 2014. If the...
  • ‘Big Bang fix’ could be buying more time for the farthest spacecraft from Earth [Voyager 1&2]

    08/16/2026 10:58:21 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 26 replies
    Accuweather ^ | August 07, 2026 | Ashley Strickland, CNN
    A clever swap has extended the historic Voyager 2’s mission in interstellar space. Engineers are hoping to do the same for Voyager 1. An ambitious effort to boost an aging probe on its journey through the uncharted territory of interstellar space seems to have found success. Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, have spent the last few months implementing what they nicknamed the “Big Bang” fix to buy the historic Voyager 2 spacecraft more time to continue its science mission. Voyager 2 is roughly 21.35 billion kilometers (13 billion miles) away from Earth, while its twin, Voyager...
  • What happens when Betelgeuse blows its top?

    08/16/2026 10:43:43 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 54 replies
    Scientific American ^ | August 14, 2026 | Phil Plait
    This artist’s concept shows the red supergiant star Betelgeuse and a companion star orbiting within the supergiant’s tenuous outer atmosphere. Artwork: NASA, ESA, Elizabeth Wheatley (STScI); Science: Andrea Dupree (CfA) Betelgeuse has always been something of a mystery. And by “mystery,” I mean a source of endless fun, fascination and frustration for astronomers. Betelgeuse is one of the brightest stars in the sky, marking the right shoulder of the constellation Orion. It’s a red supergiant, a massive star with more than a dozen times the sun’s heft, that’s blasting out many tens of thousands as much light as our own...
  • Istanbul's Hidden Byzantine Ruins [9:34]

    08/16/2026 8:26:19 AM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 14 replies
    YouTube ^ | August 15, 2026 | toldinstone
    This video explores some of the Byzantine ruins hidden beneath the streets of modern Istanbul. I'd like to thank the management of the Ring Stone Hotel and Alp Watmough for making my filming possible. YT Summary: toldinstone explores the architectural palimpsest of Sultan Ahmed, tracing remnants of the Great Palace of the Byzantine emperors hidden within modern structures. From repurposed cisterns and sarcophagi to surviving ramp towers, the narrative uncovers how historical layers continue to shape the fabric of daily life in contemporary Istanbul. Istanbul's Hidden Byzantine Ruins | 9:34 toldinstone | 645K subscribers | 19,389 views | August 15,...
  • Graduate Student Proves a Quantum Uncertainty Principle for Fractals

    08/16/2026 7:24:36 AM PDT · by BenLurkin · 10 replies
    Quanta Magazine ^ | 08/12/2026 | Shalma Wegsman
    At the quantum scale, tiny particles behave in bizarre ways. One reason for this is the uncertainty principle, which says that the more you know about where a quantum particle is, the less you can know about how fast it’s moving, and vice versa. The new uncertainty principle relates to fractals, shapes that remain equally complex no matter how much you zoom in on them. Around a decade ago, Semyon Dyatlov was studying whether quantum particles behave differently than ordinary particles when put into the same chaotic situations. Sometimes, an object moving chaotically can become trapped into following a fractal-like...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - Bright Perseids from Sweden

    08/15/2026 1:41:22 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 9 replies
    NASA ^ | 15 Aug, 2026 | Image Credit & Copyright: P-M Hedén (Clear Skies, TWAN)
    Explanation: Known for its bright and fast meteors, the annual Perseid Meteor Shower comes to planet Earth's skies from a radiant in the heroic constellation Perseus. The popular northern summer celestial spectacle is created as grains of dust cast off along the orbit of periodic comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle vaporize in Earth's dense atmosphere, tracing brief, but beautiful streaks through the night. Taken near the shower's peak of activity on August 12, this composite image recorded two bright perseid meteors and one meteor's watery reflection from a location near the coastal village of Grisslehamn, Sweden. Almost as bright as Altair, brightest star...
  • ‘I was screaming’: Scientists shocked as dolphins filmed using shells to trap prey for the first time

    08/15/2026 12:32:27 PM PDT · by nickcarraway · 26 replies
    New York Post ^ | Aug. 15, 2026 | Ben Cost
    Researchers are shell-shocked at the latest marine discovery. Dolphins have been filmed using shells to ensnare their prey off the coast of Australia, marking the first time this clever tactic has been caught on camera, per a bombshell paper in Marine Mammal Science. “The second I saw that shell in the air, I immediately knew what was happening,” the study’s head author, Alexis Levengood, a marine mammal biologist at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, told ScienceAlert. Levengood said she and her team were on a research vessel off Hervey Bay when they spotted a female Pacific bottlenose...
  • AOC’s student debt unpaid as she embarks on costly egg-freezing journey (only 4.45 years left)

    08/15/2026 1:54:12 AM PDT · by Libloather · 31 replies
    NY Post ^ | 8/14/26 | Josh Christenson
    WASHINGTON — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has made at least $174,000 annually for nearly eight years as a member of Congress, but like many of her “Squad” colleagues, she has yet to put a substantial dent in her student loan debt, according to House financial disclosures. The Bronx and Queens Democrat has owed between $15,001 and $50,000 in federal student loan debt since her election to the House in 2018. That’s the same amount she owes now, according to her August disclosure, where lawmakers report ranges for debt and income. The “Tax the Rich!” pol reported less than $81,000 in...
  • Sardinia: A monumental Tomb of the Giants Discovered Near Macomer

    08/14/2026 11:21:39 PM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 12 replies
    Finestre sull'Arte ^ | July 30, 2026 | Redazione
    ...at the Carrarzu Iddia archaeological site in Bortigali, a short distance from the town of Macomer. The monument still preserves its burial chamber and exedra and provides new insights into Nuragic civilization...The monument, which had long been completely hidden by vegetation, was rediscovered thanks to survey activities...The tomb is located on the southern slope of Crastu Littu, at an elevation of approximately 740 meters...The funerary monument is constructed of trachyte blocks... the burial chamber and the monumental semicircular exedra preceding the entrance...are still clearly visible......the space is divided into two levels near the entrance -- a construction solution that has...
  • WWII: The Last Day [20:41]

    08/14/2026 5:11:16 PM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 10 replies
    YouTube ^ | August 14, 2026 | The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered
    Fighting in the Second World War went on until the very end. WWII: The Last Day | 20:41 The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered | 1.64M subscribers | 14,619 views | August 14, 2026
  • Bloody, hair-pulling brawl erupts at swanky Beverly Hills steakhouse serving $80 filets

    08/14/2026 3:37:39 PM PDT · by Libloather · 78 replies
    NY Post ^ | 8/14/26 | Ross O'Keefe
    California Post on Google Beverly Hills diners hoping to chow down on expensive filet mignon were treated to a different kind of beef at Steak 48. The messy melee exploded between two women at the pricey Beverly Hills steakhouse, captured on video obtained by TMZ. As forks clinked and calming music played, the two women brutally yanked each other’s hair as confused employees tried to stop them and entertained diners watched. "Oh my god, I love this,” one woman could be heard saying in the video. Both brawlers sported fancy dresses without undergarments as they attacked each other. They rolled...