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Science (General/Chat)

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  • Lyrid meteor shower 2025: When, where & how to see it: best time to view early morning on April 22.

    04/21/2025 8:26:06 PM PDT · by UMCRevMom@aol.com · 7 replies
    https://www.space.com ^ | 4-21-2025 | Daisy Dobrijevic
    The best time to view the Lyrids this year will be early morning on April 22. The best time to observe the Lyrids is in the predawn hours when the shower’s radiant is at its highest in the sky. However, be mindful that as the morning progresses, the radiant will continue to climb, but so will the approaching sunrise and the brightening skies, which will hinder visibility. The shower is known for its luminous dust trains which can be observed for several seconds according to NASA. The Lyrids are associated with Comet Thatcher, a long-period comet that orbits the sun...
  • Where Did the Celts Really Come From? [48:22]

    04/21/2025 8:23:12 PM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 36 replies
    YouTube ^ | March 20, 2025 | Our History
    Anthropologist Richard Rudgley explores the history of the Celtic world and reveals the Celtic tradition to be a crucial part of what makes a Brit a True Brit. From Germany to the far west of Ireland, by way of Gaul, Pictish Scotland and England under Roman occupation, Rudgley takes a 5,000-mile journey of discovery that starts around 1,000 BC and ends in the present day. He uncovers remarkable archaeological evidence that puts a brand new light on the savagery and civilisation of an often misunderstood European culture. Where Did the Celts Really Come From? | 48:22 Our History | 883K...
  • Breakthrough Drug Restores Vision: Researchers Successfully Reverse Retinal Damage

    04/21/2025 7:07:31 PM PDT · by Red Badger · 14 replies
    Scitech Daily ^ | April 21, 2025 | The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)
    KAIST researchers have developed a groundbreaking drug that restores vision by inducing retinal nerve regeneration, marking the first long-term neural regeneration in mammalian retinas. This treatment works by blocking the PROX1 protein, a key inhibitor of retinal regeneration, and has shown lasting effects in mouse models of retinal disease. ************************************************************ Blocking the PROX1 protein allowed KAIST researchers to regenerate damaged retinas and restore vision in mice. Vision is one of the most important human senses, yet more than 300 million people around the world are at risk of losing it due to various retinal diseases. Although recent treatments have helped...
  • ‘Bro-Science’ Overturned: Plant-Based Diets Build Muscle Just as Well as Animal Proteins

    04/21/2025 6:05:19 PM PDT · by Red Badger · 68 replies
    Study Finds ^ | April 21, 2025 | Research led by Andrew Askow and Nicholas Burd, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
    In a nutshell Vegan diets support muscle protein synthesis at the same rate as omnivorous diets when protein intake is matched (1.1-1.2g per kg of body weight). How you distribute protein throughout the day (evenly across meals vs. mostly at dinner) doesn’t significantly impact muscle growth. Vegan dieters reported higher energy levels and less fatigue, while omnivorous dieters reported greater meal satisfaction. ******************************************************************* CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Forget what you’ve heard at the gym about needing chicken breasts and steaks to build muscle. Science just delivered a win for plant-based eaters everywhere. Researchers found that vegan diets support muscle growth just...
  • Northern Lights Alert: Geomagnetic Storms Could Bring Aurora Borealis To These 10 States Tonight!

    04/21/2025 12:54:30 PM PDT · by Red Badger · 11 replies
    Daily Galaxy ^ | April 21, 2025 | Lydia Amazouz
    Get ready for a spectacular light show tonight as geomagnetic storms bring the northern lights closer to unexpected locations. The northern lights, or aurora borealis, are expected to put on a stunning display across several U.S. states tonight, thanks to geomagnetic storms that are disrupting Earth’s magnetic field. These solar-driven storms, forecasted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), will bring the auroras closer to areas typically outside their usual range. This rare opportunity offers a chance for skywatchers in unexpected locations to witness one of nature’s most mesmerizing phenomena. Where Will the Northern Lights Be Visible? According to...
  • The Mysterious Algae That Melts Ice: Microscopic Life Fueling Glacier Loss

    04/21/2025 12:24:26 PM PDT · by Red Badger · 12 replies
    Scitech Daily ^ | April 21, 2025 | Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology
    The tiny ice inhabitants darken the glacier’s surface, which can accelerate its melting. Glaciers are massive bodies of white ice that reflect a significant amount of sunlight. However, in areas where the snow has melted and the bare ice is exposed, dark patches often appear. These dark areas are caused by microscopic algae that grow directly on the ice. By darkening the surface, these algae reduce the glacier’s ability to reflect sunlight, leading to increased absorption of heat. This, in turn, causes the ice to warm and melt more quickly. Mysterious algae growth Little is known about how the tiny...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - Galaxy Lenses Galaxy from Webb

    04/21/2025 12:01:50 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 12 replies
    NASA ^ | 21 Apr, 2025 | Image Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, G. Mahler
    Explanation: Is this one galaxy or two? Although it looks like one, the answer is two. One path to this happening is when a small galaxy collides with a larger galaxy and ends up in the center. But in the featured image, something more rare is going on. Here, the central light-colored elliptical galaxy is much closer than the blue and red-colored spiral galaxy that surrounds it. This can happen when near and far galaxies are exactly aligned, causing the gravity of the near galaxy to pull the light from the far galaxy around it in an effect called gravitational...
  • Earth's Magnetic Field Once Collapsed. Humans Survived. Here's How

    04/21/2025 6:44:52 AM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 82 replies
    Study Finds ^ | April 18, 2025 | StudyFinds Staff
    Earth's Northern Lights typically dance near the poles, but 41,000 years ago, they lit up skies over North Africa and Australia. New research reveals how dramatically Earth's magnetic field weakened and shifted during an event called the Laschamps geomagnetic excursion, potentially influencing human evolution at a pivotal moment in our history...During the Laschamps excursion, Earth's magnetic field weakened to just 10% of its current strength, while the magnetic poles shifted dramatically away from the geographic poles...Using advanced computer modeling, the research team reconstructed Earth's magnetosphere during five key periods of the excursion. At its peak around 40,977 years ago, Earth's...
  • The Starliner: worse than we thought

    04/21/2025 5:20:38 AM PDT · by MtnClimber · 15 replies
    American Thinker ^ | 21 Apr, 2025 | Mike McDaniel
    In Astronauts carefully tell the truth, I noted astronaut Butch Wilmore confirmed Elon Musk’s assertion that he and Suni Williams really were stranded on the ISS, and that Musk offered to bring them home during Biden’s Handler’s Administration but was refused because they didn’t want Biden to look bad before the election. The Biden Administration and the Democrat media went to great lengths to deny they were stranded. Arizona Democrat Senator Mark Kelly’s brother Scott claimed there was always a capsule docked there so they could come home at will. While there was a capsule docked, it was there as...
  • 3,000-year-old Iron Age purple dye factory found in Israel operated for 500 years

    04/20/2025 8:47:07 PM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 18 replies
    Interesting Engineering ^ | April 20, 2025 | Maria Mocerino
    For the first time, archaeologists discovered an industrial purple-dye factory that remained in business for 500 years between 1100 and 600 BCE in Israel, highlighting a famous and mysterious color in textile history.The color purple had long symbolized political and spiritual authority and wealth. However, until now, little evidence has surfaced of a physical location where extraction and processing took place.A team from the Zinman Institute of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University and the University of Chicago recently uncovered the first site in "the entire world" at the fishing village of Tel Shiqmona on Israel's Carmel coast. And the number...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day -

    04/20/2025 2:44:42 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 17 replies
    NASA ^ | 20 Apr, 2025 | Image Credit & Copyright: Infrared: NASA, Spitzer Space Telescope; Visible: Oliver Czernetz, Siding
    Explanation: The Great Nebula in Orion is a colorful place. Visible to the unaided eye, it appears as a small fuzzy patch in the constellation of Orion. Long exposure, multi-wavelength images like this, however, show the Orion Nebula to be a busy neighborhood of young stars, hot gas, and dark dust. This digital composite features not only three colors of visible light but four colors of infrared light taken by NASA's orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope as well. The power behind much of the Orion Nebula (M42) is the Trapezium - four of the brightest stars in the nebula. Many of...
  • Pro-trans activists yell ‘Hail Satan’ at California school board meeting to protect girls’ sports: ‘Deeply unsettling’

    04/20/2025 3:50:13 AM PDT · by Libloather · 24 replies
    NY Post ^ | 4/19/25 | Shane Galvin
    Masked “outside agitators” shouted “Hail Satan” in support of transgender athletes at a California school board meeting that passed several measures to protect girls’ sports — in a scene one concerned parent called “deeply unsettling.” A Chino Valley Unified School District board meeting Thursday was disrupted by two blue-haired, mask-wearing agitators who were stunned to find their cause was widely disfavored by the majority of parents who supported the . “Y’all are a bunch of transphobic pieces of s–t. I hope you all burn in hell,” one angry person said as they stormed out, a video posted by CVUSD board...
  • Thriving Local Settlement Uncovered Near Roman Legionary Camp

    04/19/2025 10:26:05 PM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 12 replies
    Archaeology Magazine ^ | April 10, 2025 | editors / unattributed
    German archaeologists have unearthed a thriving local community located near a Roman camp far beyond the borders of the Roman frontier, La Brüjula Verde reports. The legionary camp of Anreppen was built along the Lippe River in the first century a.d. and occupied briefly as Rome attempted to expand its territory further into the province of Germania. Initial archaeological investigation eight years ago uncovered a single isolated farmstead near the camp, but recent excavations have shown that the settlement was far more substantial than originally thought. Several farmsteads have now been identified and archaeologists have recovered artifacts demonstrating that local...
  • New ‘Spinning Universe’ Theory Could Explain a Decades-Old Cosmological Mystery

    04/19/2025 9:24:25 PM PDT · by Red Badger · 27 replies
    The Debrief ^ | April 18, 2025 | Ryan Whalen
    The entire universe may be rotating—just like its individual components, from massive galaxies to solar systems and planets—a possibility that could help explain the long-standing “Hubble tension” that has puzzled scientists for years. None of the currently accepted models of the universe account for any overall spin. Instead, they describe it as expanding uniformly in all directions. However, these models run into trouble with the so-called Hubble tension, a discrepancy where different methods of measuring the universe’s expansion yield conflicting results. “To paraphrase the Greek philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus, who famously said ‘Panta Rhei’—everything moves—we thought that perhaps Panta Kykloutai—everything...
  • Astronomers Discover First-Ever Lone Black Hole Drifting Through the Milky Way

    04/19/2025 9:09:16 PM PDT · by Red Badger · 29 replies
    Daily Galaxy ^ | April 19, 2025 | Lydia Amazouz
    In a landmark discovery, astronomers have confirmed the existence of a solitary stellar-mass black hole—an object with immense gravity, yet no visible companion, quietly roaming the depths of the Milky Way galaxy. Identified in the direction of the Sagittarius constellation, this black hole is believed to be around seven times more massive than our Sun and marks the first confirmed detection of a black hole not bound to another star. The study, published in The Astrophysical Journal and led by Kailash C. Sahu and colleagues at the Space Telescope Science Institute, relied on more than a decade of high-precision data...
  • Fuming Democrats tell Biden’s handlers to keep ex-prez out of spotlight

    04/19/2025 6:32:35 PM PDT · by Libloather · 25 replies
    Fox News via NY Post ^ | 4/19/25 | Gabriel Hays
    Democratic figures and even the former first family’s aides are saying that former President Biden needs to stay out of politics, according to a new report from “The Hill.” The outlet’s senior political correspondent, Amie Parnes, spoke to former first lady Jill Biden’s communications director Michael LaRosa, who stated that Biden’s staff needs to steer him away from the spotlight because the party is not interested in seeing him. “If they had advisers who had their hand on the pulse of the Democratic Party or national politics, they would have understood the intense level of anger or indifference to them...
  • Fifty Years Ago, This Irresistible Disco Song and Dance Craze Swept the Nation and Changed the Music Landscape

    04/19/2025 5:53:06 PM PDT · by nickcarraway · 76 replies
    Smithsonian Magazine ^ | April 18, 2025 | Alice George
    Disco music’s time in the sun may have passed, but the legacy of “The Hustle,” a mega hit in the genre, lives onOn April 18, 1975, Van McCoy and the Soul City Symphony’s “The Hustle” was released and skyrocketed to become a massive dance hit of the decade, selling ten million records. The song and the dance it celebrated set the beat of the disco era. The record is known for its irresistible rhythm and its primary lyrical command: “Do the hustle,” which is said 11 times. The only other lyrics—said five times—are “Do it.” Before spending an hour to...
  • David Hogg Says Democracy Put Us Through The 'Climate Crisis' (only 5.77 years left)

    04/19/2025 5:10:40 PM PDT · by Libloather · 14 replies
    Outkick ^ | 4/19/25 | Ian Miller
    The Democrat Party is on an impressive losing streak. The Dems comprehensively lost the 2024 presidential election, they're obsessively focused on being on the 20 side of the 80-20 transgender athletes issue, and then they elected David Hogg as the Democratic National Committee's Vice Chair. Hogg, not known as one of the country's brightest thinkers, is using his newfound importance as vice chair to make media appearances and demonstrate in exact detail why he was a terrific choice to lead the party. If you're a Republican. In a CBS News appearance this week, Hogg said in an interview that his...
  • Heavy Marijuana Use May Raise Dementia Risk Within Five Years

    04/19/2025 5:06:38 PM PDT · by nickcarraway · 21 replies
    UPI ^ | 4/16 | Dennis Thompson
    Middle-aged folks and seniors whose weed use lands them in the hospital are at higher risk for developing dementia within a matter of years, a new study says. An ER visit or hospitalization due to cannabis use is associated with a 72% increased risk of a dementia diagnosis within five years compared to the general population, researchers reported April 14 in JAMA Neurology. These folks also have a 23% increased risk of dementia within five years compared to people receiving hospital care for any other reason, researchers added. "Long-term and heavy cannabis use has been associated with memory problems in...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - Painting with Jupiter

    04/19/2025 2:07:04 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 24 replies
    NASA ^ | 19 Apr, 2025 | Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, SwRI, MSSS; Processing: Rick Lundh
    Explanation: In digital brush strokes, Jupiter's signature atmospheric bands and vortices were used to form this interplanetary post-impressionist work of art. The creative image from citizen scientist Rick Lundh uses data from the Juno spacecraft's JunoCam. To paint on the digital canvas, a JunoCam image with contrasting light and dark tones was chosen for processing and an oil-painting software filter applied. The image data was captured during perijove 10. That was Juno's December 16, 2017 close encounter with the solar system's ruling gas giant. At the time the spacecraft was cruising about 13,000 kilometers above northern Jovian cloud tops. Now...