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Science (General/Chat)

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  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - Apollo 11: Catching Some Sun

    09/13/2026 4:41:18 AM PDT · by MtnClimber · 11 replies
    NASA ^ | 12 Sep, 2026 | Image Credit: Apollo 11, NASA (Image scanned by Kipp Teague)
    [Note: Catching up for yesterday] Explanation: Bright sunlight glints as long dark shadows mark this image of the surface of the Moon. It was taken on July 20, 1969, by Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first to walk on the lunar surface. Pictured is the mission's lunar module, the Eagle, and spacesuited lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin. Aldrin is unfurling a long sheet of foil also known as the Solar Wind Composition Experiment. Exposed facing the Sun, the foil trapped particles streaming outward in the solar wind, catching a sample of material from the Sun itself. Along with 22...
  • Pyramids of Georgia [15:48]

    09/12/2026 5:43:30 PM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 17 replies
    YouTube ^ | September 12, 2026 | Archaeologist Ed Barnhart
    In this video, Ed Barnhart explores the rise of Etowah, its six earthen pyramids, large plaza, homes, palisade walls, and the natural resources that helped support a thriving ancient city. He also looks at the remarkable artwork and trade networks found atEtowah, including copper and ceremonial objects connected to the wider Mississippian world. From its origins and periods of growth to its decline, conflicts, and eventual encounters with Spanish explorers, Ed examines the story of one of the most fascinating ancient cities of North America. Pyramids of Georgia | 15:48 Archaeologist Ed Barnhart | 41.7K subscribers 25,598 views | September...
  • Three Unfinished Roman Megaprojects [12:20]

    09/12/2026 1:36:48 PM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 4 replies
    YouTube ^ | September 12, 2026 | Garrett Ryan, Ph.D (as toldinstone)
    Three Unfinished Roman Megaprojects | 12:20 toldinstone | 648K subscribers | 13,841 views | September 12, 2026
  • A Cosmic Catastrophe May Have Turned Neptune’s Ancient Moons Inside Out

    09/12/2026 12:42:32 PM PDT · by Red Badger · 21 replies
    SciTech Daily ^ | September 11, 2026 | Katie Neith, Cal Tech
    This image of the Neptune system, captured by the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope in 2022, reveals stunning views of the planet’s rings—which have not been seen with this clarity in more than three decades—along with the planet’s inner moons. Credit: Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Naomi Rowe-Gurney (NASA-GSFC) Neptune’s tiny moons may be ancient wreckage, preserving material exposed when a catastrophic event shattered much larger icy worlds. In 1989, Voyager 2 discovered six previously unknown moons around Neptune. Five of them are tiny satellites that travel just beyond the planet’s...
  • AI Is Powerful Enough to Crack Our Hardest Math Problems—and Kill Us All

    09/12/2026 11:54:21 AM PDT · by E. Pluribus Unum · 35 replies
    The Wall Street Journal ^ | Sept. 11, 2026 9:00 pm ET | Ben Cohen
    You don’t need to know any math to understand why the Millennium Prize breakthrough matters. It’s proof of AI’s accelerating and terrifying progress. Why should we care that AI is suddenly insanely good at math? It’s a question that I’ve been asking mathematicians and AI researchers for months, and especially this week, when OpenAI published a solution to one of the notoriously complex Millennium Prize Problems. And it’s the one math question I can answer without breaking into a cold sweat. Math is many things to many people: beautiful, elegant, nightmare fuel. Over the past year, it has also become...
  • ‘Ungendered’ activist claims GLP-1s are ‘fascist’ and ‘genocide fat people’ in unhinged moment during DSA conference

    09/12/2026 9:28:03 AM PDT · by Libloather · 44 replies
    NY Post ^ | 9/12/26 | Gabrielle Fahmy
    They’re declaring war on Ozempic! In a completely jaw-dropping moment at the recent Democratic Socialists of America-backed Socialism 2026 conference in Chicago, an unhinged radical made the outlandish claim that GLP-1 drugs are “fascist” because they “genocide fat people.” “The political deployment of GLP-1s is fascistic, not because individuals take them, but because the conditions under which they become necessary are shaped by a world fixated on genociding fat people,” proclaimed Atlanta activist Da’Shaun L. Harrison. The extremist claimed the drugs, like Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro — which were developed to treat diabetes are credited with lowering the risk of...
  • NYC finally bans boating on lake polluted with human waste after 20 years of contamination

    09/12/2026 8:48:34 AM PDT · by Libloather · 22 replies
    NY Post ^ | 9/12/26 | David Spector
    Fishing and boating on a Staten Island lake that was polluted by human waste has finally been closed by authorities, one week after The Post reported that officials had done nothing about the “open secret” for decades. The Parks Department told The Post in a statement Friday evening that “out of an abundance of caution, fishing and boating will be suspended in Clove Lakes Park while we await water testing results.” The Post spoke to boat rental workers earlier in the day who said that boat rentals had been open all week. The workers informed The Post that parkgoers continued...
  • Exploring Medieval Slane-Finding a Hidden Hermitage, Castles & Church Ruins. [34:44]

    09/11/2026 7:18:14 PM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 5 replies
    YouTube ^ | September 2, 2026 | Jane Ní hEaghra
    Dia Dhaoibh, a chairde! Thanks for joining me for another video. I really enjoyed exploring Slane, co. Meath this month and finding a few spots there. Please as always leave any feedback or suggestions I love to hear from ye all. Go raibh míle maith agaibh as féachaint, agus slán go fóill. Exploring Medieval Slane-Finding a Hidden Hermitage, Castles & Church Ruins. | 34:44 Jane Ní hEaghra | 6K subscribers | 205,353 views | September 2, 2026
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - M83: The Southern Pinwheel

    09/11/2026 12:39:38 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 11 replies
    NASA ^ | 11 Sep, 2006 | Image Credit & Copyright:: Aldo Zanetti
    Explanation: Beautiful and bright spiral galaxy M83 lies some twelve million light-years away, near the southeastern tip of the very long constellation Hydra. Prominent spiral arms traced by dark dust lanes and blue star clusters lend this galaxy its popular name, the Southern Pinwheel. Still, reddish star forming regions that dot this cosmic pinwheel's spiral arms have suggested another nickname, the Thousand-Ruby Galaxy. A mere 40,000 light-years across, smaller than the Milky Way, M83 is a member of a group of galaxies that includes active galaxy Centaurus A. In fact, the core of M83 itself is bright at x-ray energies,...
  • NJ hairdresser charged by feds for allegedly hiring Tinder hitman to kill cop ex-boyfriend, his teen daughter

    09/11/2026 10:42:44 AM PDT · by Libloather · 34 replies
    NY Post ^ | 9/11/26 | Richard Pollina
    The New Jersey hairdresser accused of hiring a hitman she met on Tinder to murder her ex-boyfriend and his teenage daughter was indicted Wednesday in connection with the contract killing plot. Jaclyn Diiorio, 28, faces two counts of using interstate commerce facilities in an attempt to commission a murder-for-hire, according to the Department of Justice Diiorio used her cell phone and tried to pay a confidential informant to kill her ex-boyfriend — a Philadelphia Police officer, Matthew O’Hanlon — and his 19-year-old daughter, a federal indictment filed Sept. 3 in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania...
  • Russian troops gifted dead prince’s hand in bizarre bid to boost morale as Kremlin suffers mass casualties

    09/10/2026 5:42:02 PM PDT · by Libloather · 8 replies
    NY Post ^ | 9/10/26 | Ronny Reyes
    They’re getting a helping hand. The Russian Orthodox Church sent fragments of a medieval prince’s hand to soldiers in the frontlines as a means to raise morale and provide “spiritual strength” to end the war. The church, which backs Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, said it dispatched a fragment of Grand Prince Dmitry Donskoy’s sword hand to soldiers in the occupied region of Donetsk. The Moscow ⁠Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church said sending the prince’s remains served as a symbol to allow the so-called “holy commander” to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Moscow’s invading army. “A fragment of the...
  • Cuban doctors claim they were forced into slavery as propaganda for the Communist regime — seek $129M in new lawsuit

    09/10/2026 4:36:57 PM PDT · by Libloather · 8 replies
    NY Post ^ | 9/10/26 | Isabel Vincent
    A group of Cuban doctors claim they were effectively sold into slavery by their country’s regime and are asking for $129 million in damages in a lawsuit. The legal filing says 3,500 doctors were sent to Brazil between 2013 and 2018 and claims the Cuban regime earned more than $2.3 billion for their services but paid them “a small fraction” — less than 10 percent — of their earnings. The doctors, now living in the US, claim that when dispatched abroad they were never informed 90 percent of their wages would go to the Cuban government. They also say that...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - LDN 1295: The Giraffe Nebula

    09/10/2026 1:29:17 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 7 replies
    NASA ^ | 10 Sept, 2026 | Image Credit & Copyright: Alessandro Merga Text: Cecilia Chirenti (NASA GSFC, UMCP, CRESST II)
    Explanation: What does this image look like to you? Many see a giraffe facing right, with neck stretched high and long legs mid-stride (but some may see a squirrel instead). The featured image shows LDN 1295, also called the Giraffe Nebula, in the constellation of the mythical queen of Aethiopia (Cassiopeia). It is an object in the Lynds Catalogue of Dark Nebulas, compiled in 1962 by American astronomer Beverly Lynds, a pioneer for women in astronomy and astrophysics. Dark nebulas are interstellar clouds of dust and gas that block the visible light of the stars behind them. These nebulas are...
  • Sources say! Or how to use AI and navigate through the myriad of data sources on the Internet

    09/10/2026 8:42:57 AM PDT · by Alas Babylon! · 21 replies
    Myself ^ | 15 January 2026 | Alas Babylon!
    AI isn’t a mind — it’s a tool. What most people call “AI” today is actually a Large Language Model (LLM). It isn’t sentient, conscious, or capable of wanting anything. An LLM is a program trained on enormous amounts of text so it can predict what words should come next in a sentence. That’s why it can answer questions in a way that sounds human — it’s imitating patterns in language, not thinking or understanding. The amount of human knowledge stored in text, audio, video, databases, and other formats is massive and growing rapidly. If some of that data is...
  • Creation Slowed Time Without Changing Physics...This is the best working theory for young earth creationists and the distant starlight challenge.

    09/09/2026 5:56:34 PM PDT · by Red Badger · 66 replies
    Blessed Report ^ | September 09, 2026 | JD Rucker
    Most Christians believe the universe is billions of years old. Some treat the six days of creation as a metaphor. Others latch onto explanations such as Gap Theory or Day-Age Theory to reconcile. But there is one theory that I’ve found after years of on-and-off research that has legs. In fact, it has fewer scientific and mathematical holes than the Big Bang Theory itself. The distant starlight argument is the favorite club skeptics swing at Genesis. Light from a galaxy ten billion light-years away cannot reach Earth in six thousand years if light crawls at 186,000 miles per second. Therefore,...
  • Roman revelation: Biggest ancient monumental wall mosaic unveiled after 2,000 years

    09/09/2026 12:34:04 PM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 17 replies
    Euronews ^ | September 9, 2026 | Ilaria Cicinelli & Tokunbo Salako
    Trajan's Baths in Oppian Hill will host a new museum where visitors to Rome can admire the Great Mosaic and the Painted City, two massive ancient artworks buried near the Colosseum that are estimated to date from the 1st century... The "Painted City" fresco and "Great Mosaic" were discovered in an underground gallery during excavations in the 1990s of the Baths of Trajan on the Oppian Hill near the Colosseum. After being hidden underground for centuries, its blues and terracotta colors are still clear but faded... The Painted City is a ten-square-metre fresco belonging to a building that predates Trajan's...
  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - Witness XZ Andromedae Wink

    09/09/2026 12:06:19 PM PDT · by MtnClimber · 2 replies
    NASA ^ | 9 Sep, 2026 | Video Credit: Ogetay Kayali (MTU, Starfront Observatories) Text: Keighley Rockcliffe (NASA GSFC, UMB
    Explanation: Is this star winking at us? The central object in today’s animation is not one but two stars. XZ Andromedae, indicated by the bold lines, is an Algol-type eclipsing binary with a nearly edge-on orbit from Earth’s perspective. The bottom light curve shows the amount of light from the system dim and brighten as the cooler star eclipses its hotter, brighter companion. Analysis of several XZ Andromedae light curves indicates there may be two other stars orbiting the system. This particular light curve was created with Citizen Astronomy, an open-source software for differential photometry. The software takes the difference...
  • Hillary Clinton’s ‘deplorables’ speech shocked voters five years ago — but some feel it was prescient (10 year anniversary & celebration)

    09/09/2026 4:10:34 AM PDT · by Libloather · 33 replies
    Washington Post ^ | 8/31/21 | Roxanne Roberts
    Let’s start with the obvious: “Basket of deplorables” is a weird turn of phrase. There are baskets and there are deplorable people, but pairing the two is the oddest of linguistic odd couples. Hillary Clinton said those three words in the final months of her 2016 presidential campaign, making rhetorical and political history. There were two kinds of Donald Trump supporters, she explained: Voters who feel abandoned and desperate, who she placed in one metaphorical basket, and those she called “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic and Islamophobic” — her “basket of deplorables.” Trump — the same man who announced his candidacy...
  • Where is the Body of Alexander the Great? [8:35]

    09/08/2026 8:54:46 PM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 20 replies
    YouTube ^ | July 1, 2022 | Garrett Ryan, Ph.D (as toldinstone)
    For six centuries, the body of Alexander the great lay in a monumental tomb in at heart of Alexandria. After a series of disasters, the tomb vanished. The conqueror's body, however, may have survived... Following the death of the conqueror in Babylon, their body began a long journey involving squabbling generals, a golden coffin in Alexandria, and various imperial visitors. tol-in-stone examines the tumultuous history of this lost mausoleum, exploring theories ranging from catastrophic destruction to a potential relocation to Venice. Where is the Body of Alexander the Great? | 8:35 toldinstone | 648K subscribers | 298,441 views | July...
  • New Study: DNA From Wyoming's Prehistoric Cat Could Save Cheetahs, Lions, Tigers

    09/08/2026 7:28:40 PM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 9 replies
    Cowboy State Daily ^ | September 05, 2026 | Andrew Rossi
    A new study, "Range and diet diversity in the Pleistocene American 'cheetah,' Miracinonyx trumani," was published in the scientific journal Current Biology on Friday. Using the tiniest of bones, including some found in Wyoming's Natural Trap Cave, the diet and DNA of the American cheetah-like cat have been revealed in astonishing detail... "It's actually most closely related to the living mountain lion, and those are both sister species most closely related to the jaguarundi," she said. "The three of them together are distantly related to modern cheetah."... Some of the best Late Pleistocene specimens [various species] ever found have come...