Welcome to Atheist Discussion, a new community created by former members of The Thinking Atheist forum.

Thread Rating:
  • 1 Vote(s) - 5 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Science News
#51

Science News
Invention lets people pay for purchases with a high-five
Innovative fabric enables digital communication between wearers, nearby devices
Date: November 16, 2021
Source: University of California - Irvine
Summary: Imagine your car starting the moment you get in because it recognizes the jacket you're wearing. Consider the value of a hospital gown that continuously measures and transmits a patient's vital signs. These are just two applications made possible by a new 'body area network'-enabling fabric.

Continues on link.
[Image: M-Spr20-Weapons-FEATURED-1-1200x350-c-default.jpg]
Reply
#52

Science News
Collectors in the prehistoric world recycled old stone tools to preserve the memory of their ancestors
New study unravels recycling practices 500,000 years ago

Date: March 7, 2022
Source: Tel-Aviv University
Summary: A new study asks what drove prehistoric humans to collect and recycle flint tools that had been made, used, and discarded by their predecessors. After examining flint tools from one layer at the 500,000-year-old prehistoric site of Revadim in the south of Israel's Coastal Plain, researchers propose a novel explanation: prehistoric humans, just like us, were collectors by nature and culture.

Continues on link.
[Image: M-Spr20-Weapons-FEATURED-1-1200x350-c-default.jpg]
The following 1 user Likes Gawdzilla Sama's post:
  • skyking
Reply
#53

Science News
Gene editing gets safer thanks to redesigned Cas9 protein
Date: March 2, 2022
Source: University of Texas at Austin
Summary: Scientists have redesigned a key component of a widely used CRISPR-based gene-editing tool, called Cas9, to be thousands of times less likely to target the wrong stretch of DNA while remaining just as efficient as the original version, making it potentially much safer.

Continues on link.
[Image: M-Spr20-Weapons-FEATURED-1-1200x350-c-default.jpg]
Reply
#54

Science News
Newly identified softshell turtle lived alongside T. rex and Triceratops
Date: March 11, 2022
Source: University of Pennsylvania
Summary: Scientists describe the find of a new softshell turtle from the end of the Cretaceous Period.

A newly described softshell turtle that lived in North Dakota 66.5 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous Period, just before the end-Cretaceous mass extinction,is oneof the earliest known species of the genus, according to new research shared in the journal Cretaceous Research.

Hutchemys walkerorum lived during a period when large and well-known dinosaurs also roamed Earth, including Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops. The find adds important information to scientists' understanding of softshell turtles more broadly, including the potential effects of the end-Cretaceous mass extinction, which took place in this same time period, on their evolution.

Continues on link.
[Image: M-Spr20-Weapons-FEATURED-1-1200x350-c-default.jpg]
Reply
#55

Science News
New acoustic fabric converts audible sounds into electrical signals

Date: March 16, 2022
Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Summary: Researchers have developed a new acoustic fabric converts audible sounds into electrical signals. They designed a fabric that works like a microphone, converting sound first into mechanical vibrations, then into electrical signals, similarly to how our ears hear.

Continues on link.
[Image: M-Spr20-Weapons-FEATURED-1-1200x350-c-default.jpg]
Reply
#56

Science News
Perceptions of supernatural beings reveal feelings about good and bad in humans

Date: August 30, 2021
Source: University of Waterloo
Summary: What transpires in comedies and cartoons when a character has a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other is not far off from people's perceptions of the real world, finds a new study.

Continues on link.
[Image: M-Spr20-Weapons-FEATURED-1-1200x350-c-default.jpg]
Reply
#57

Science News
U.S. fires four times larger, three times more frequent since 2000
New analysis confirms a palpable change in fire dynamics already suspected by many

Date: March 16, 2022

Source: University of Colorado at Boulder

Summary: Fires have gotten larger, more frequent and more widespread across the United States since 2000, according to a new article. The research shows that large fires have not only become more common, they are also spreading into new areas, impacting land that previously did not burn.

Continues on link.
[Image: M-Spr20-Weapons-FEATURED-1-1200x350-c-default.jpg]
The following 2 users Like Gawdzilla Sama's post:
  • Alan V, SYZ
Reply
#58

Science News
(03-18-2022, 10:35 AM)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote: Perceptions of supernatural beings reveal feelings about good and bad in humans

Date: August 30, 2021
Source: University of Waterloo
Summary: What transpires in comedies and cartoons when a character has a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other is not far off from people's perceptions of the real world, finds a new study.

Continues on link.
Well this makes sense. God cares a great deal, but does nothing. And according to the study's conclusions, people rate caring above actual actions. Meanwhile bad people, this article says, are indifferent to the feelings of others, even if they don't overtly do bad things.

So it's all down to people wanting to feel that someone (or Someone) cares, apparently in some nebulous general way. And their definition of evil is not doing bad deeds, but not caring about people's bad feelings.

Funny, I was always of the view that people show they care by helping, protecting, and nurturing those that they care about. Particularly with their god being all powerful, failure to actually act on behalf of people shows he doesn't care.
The following 1 user Likes mordant's post:
  • Gawdzilla Sama
Reply
#59

Science News
See the light - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-60771210
The following 2 users Like TinyDave's post:
  • Gawdzilla Sama, mordant
Reply
#60

Science News
Ancient ice reveals scores of gigantic volcanic eruptions

Date: March 16, 2022

Source: University of Copenhagen - Faculty of Science

Summary:
Ice cores drilled in Antarctica and Greenland have revealed gigantic volcanic eruptions during the last ice age. Sixty-nine of these were larger than any eruption in modern history. According to the physicists behind the research, these eruptions can teach us about our planet's sensitivity to climate change.

Continues on link.

Siberian Traps.
[Image: M-Spr20-Weapons-FEATURED-1-1200x350-c-default.jpg]
The following 1 user Likes Gawdzilla Sama's post:
  • skyking
Reply
#61

Science News
Blue-eyed humans have a single, common ancestor

Date: January 31, 2008
Source: University of Copenhagen
Summary: New research shows that people with blue eyes have a single, common ancestor. Scientists have tracked down a genetic mutation which took place 6,000-10,000 years ago and is the cause of the eye color of all blue-eyed humans alive on the planet today.

Continues on link.
[Image: M-Spr20-Weapons-FEATURED-1-1200x350-c-default.jpg]
The following 2 users Like Gawdzilla Sama's post:
  • Alan V, GenesisNemesis
Reply
#62

Science News
Largest ever psychedelics study maps changes of conscious awareness to neurotransmitter systems

Date: March 16, 2022
Source: McGill University
Summary: In the world's largest study on psychedelics and the brain, a team of researchers have shown how drug-induced changes in subjective awareness are anatomically rooted in specific neurotransmitter receptor systems.

Continues on link.
[Image: M-Spr20-Weapons-FEATURED-1-1200x350-c-default.jpg]
Reply
#63

Science News
Cheaper, more efficient ways to capture carbon

Date: March 16, 2022
Source: University of Colorado at Boulder
Summary: Researchers have developed a new tool that could lead to more efficient and cheaper technologies for capturing heat-trapping gases from the atmosphere and converting them into beneficial substances, like fuel or building materials.

Continues on link.
[Image: M-Spr20-Weapons-FEATURED-1-1200x350-c-default.jpg]
The following 2 users Like Gawdzilla Sama's post:
  • Alan V, Dom
Reply
#64

Science News
‘Emotional moment’: locked-in patient communicates with family via implant

Quote:A completely locked-in patient is able to type out words and short sentences to his family, including what he would like to eat, after being implanted with a device that enables him to control a keyboard with his mind.

The findings, published in Nature Communications, overturn previous assumptions about the communicative abilities of people who have lost all voluntary muscle control, including movement of the eyes or mouth, as well as giving a unique insight into what it’s like to be in a “locked in” state.

Locked-in syndrome – also known as pseudocoma - is a rare condition, where people are conscious and can see, hear, and smell, but are unable to move or speak due to complete paralysis of their voluntary muscles, eg as a result of the progressive neurodegenerative disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Some can communicate by blinking or moving their eyes, but those with completely locked-in syndrome (CLIS) cannot even control their eye muscles.

In 2017, doctors at the University of Tübingen in Germany enabled three patients with CLIS to answer “yes” or “no” to questions by detecting telltale patterns in their brain activity, using a technology called functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS).

The advance generated widespread media coverage, and prompted the parents of the current patient, who was diagnosed with ALS in 2015, to write to the medical team, saying he was losing the ability to communicate with his eye movements, and could they help.

The problem with using fNIRS to help CLIS patients to communicate is that it is relatively slow, and only gives the correct answer 70% of the time, meaning questions have to be repeated to get a reliable answer.

“It was always our goal to enable a patient in a completely locked down state to spell out words, but with a classification accuracy of 70%, it is almost impossible to enable free spelling,” said Dr Ujwal Chaudhary, a biomedical engineer and managing director of ALS Voice gGmbH in Mössingen, Germany, who co-led the research.

Instead, they suggested surgically implanting two microelectrode arrays, each 3.2mm square, into the part of the man’s brain involved in planning and controlling voluntary movements. Because he still had control of his eye movements, he was able to consent to the procedure, although he has been completely locked in since late 2018.

Working with the researchers, the man learned how to generate brain activity that could alter the frequency of a sound wave, via a computer programme. He then applied this same strategy to control a spelling program, which allows him to select letters one at a time to form words and phrases at an average rate of about one character per minute.

Slow as that may be, “if you have a choice of no communication, and a communication of one character per minute, the choice is very obvious,” Chaudhary said.

Among his communications, the 36-year-old from Germany, has requested goulash soup and beer – despite being fed through a tube that bypasses his mouth and taste buds – and asked if his four-year-old son would like to watch a Disney film with him. He has also asked his mother for a head massage, and on one day told his family: “My biggest wish is a new bed and that tomorrow I come with you for barbecue.”

Such sentences provide some insight into the man’s quality of life. “If someone is forming sentences like this, I would say it is positive. Even if it is not positive, it is not negative,” Chaudhary said. “One time when I was there, he said, ‘thank you for everything, sister’ [to his sister, who helps care for him]. It was an emotional moment.”
Mountain-high though the difficulties appear, terrible and gloomy though all things seem, they are but Mâyâ.
Fear not — it is banished. Crush it, and it vanishes. Stamp upon it, and it dies.


Vivekananda
The following 4 users Like Dānu's post:
  • Gawdzilla Sama, Alan V, Paleophyte, GenesisNemesis
Reply
#65

Science News
Could the asteroid Ryugu be a remnant of an extinct comet? Scientists now answer

Date: March 22, 2022
Source: Nagoya City University
Summary: The Hayabusa2 mission has recently uncovered information on the physical characteristics of the asteroid 'Ryugu,' which, according to the conventional theory, forms from a collision between larger asteroids. Now, a study by scientists from Japan suggests that Ryugu is, in fact, an extinct comet. With a simple physical model that fits currently available observations, the study provides a better understanding of comets, asteroids, and the evolution of our solar system.

Continues on link.
[Image: M-Spr20-Weapons-FEATURED-1-1200x350-c-default.jpg]
The following 1 user Likes Gawdzilla Sama's post:
  • Antonio
Reply
#66

Science News
The Japanese have made a abiogenesis breakthrough.  

https://onlysky.media/jpearce/the-beginn...on-of-rna/#

Quote: One of the missing pieces of evidence for this theory is that we have not been able to replicate this process in the lab. However, this may now have been achieved, as reported in a study published in Nature Communications. Project Assistant Professor Ryo Mizuuchi and Professor Norikazu Ichihashi at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Tokyo, and their team, carried out a long-term RNA replication experiment in which they witnessed the transition from a chemical system towards biological complexity.

“We found that the single RNA species evolved into a complex replication system: a replicator network comprising five types of RNAs with diverse interactions, supporting the plausibility of a long-envisioned evolutionary transition scenario,” said Mizuuchi.

Here's the abstract.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-29113-x

Quote: Evolutionary transition from a single RNA replicator to a multiple replicator network

Quote:  Here we perform long-term evolution experiments of RNA that replicates using a self-encoded RNA replicase. The RNA diversifies into multiple coexisting host and parasite lineages, whose frequencies in the population initially fluctuate and gradually stabilize. The final population, comprising five RNA lineages, forms a replicator network with diverse interactions, including cooperation to help the replication of all other members. These results support the capability of molecular replicators to spontaneously develop complexity through Darwinian evolution, a critical step for the emergence of life. 
                                                         T4618
The following 6 users Like Dancefortwo's post:
  • Antonio, Alan V, Gawdzilla Sama, Paleophyte, SYZ, GenesisNemesis
Reply
#67

Science News
On Jupiter's moon Europa, 'chaos terrains' could be shuttling oxygen to ocean

Date: March 24, 2022
Source: University of Texas at Austin
Summary: Researchers have built the world's first physics-based computer simulation of oxygen transport on Europa, finding that it's possible for oxygen to drain through the moon's icy shell and into its ocean of liquid water -- where it could potentially help sustain alien life -- by hitching a ride on salt water under the moon's 'chaos terrains.' The results show that not only is the transport possible, but that the amount of oxygen brought into Europa's ocean could be on a par with the quantity of oxygen in Earth's oceans today.

Continues on link.
[Image: M-Spr20-Weapons-FEATURED-1-1200x350-c-default.jpg]
The following 1 user Likes Gawdzilla Sama's post:
  • GenesisNemesis
Reply
#68

Science News
Good news for coffee lovers: Daily coffee may benefit the heart
Drinking two to three cups a day was associated with greatest heart benefits

Date: March 24, 2022
Source: American College of Cardiology
Summary: Drinking coffee -- particularly two to three cups a day -- is not only associated with a lower risk of heart disease and dangerous heart rhythms but also with living longer, according to recent studies. These trends held true for both people with and without cardiovascular disease. Researchers said the analyses -- the largest to look at coffee's potential role in heart disease and death -- provide reassurance that coffee isn't tied to new or worsening heart disease and may actually be heart protective.

Continues on link.
[Image: M-Spr20-Weapons-FEATURED-1-1200x350-c-default.jpg]
The following 2 users Like Gawdzilla Sama's post:
  • Alan V, GenesisNemesis
Reply
#69

Science News
(03-21-2022, 11:09 AM)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote: Blue-eyed humans have a single, common ancestor

Date: January 31, 2008
Source: University of Copenhagen
Summary: New research shows that people with blue eyes have a single, common ancestor. Scientists have tracked down a genetic mutation which took place 6,000-10,000 years ago and is the cause of the eye color of all blue-eyed humans alive on the planet today.

Continues on link.

While interesting this seems kind of intuitive.   A mutation that conferred no sexual aversion or disadvantage, but could have, if even slight, given some sexual advantage (Humans are horny for "different but not too different").  Why would it be anything but a single common ancestor? 

I suppose the counter-argument is something like "white" as a skin color, it is unlikely there was a single "white guy" who mutated out and thus white people.  It was surely gradual with probably many individuals simply with lighter and more advantageous gradations of lighter skin than others to better survive in the sun-starved northern climates.

But brown eyes "gradually" becoming blue?  How?  Is that the kind of gradual accumulated mutation that would really confer some survival and reproductive advantage?  Seems more like a Bang sudden characteristic.
Reply
#70

Science News
(03-26-2022, 02:33 AM)jerry mcmasters Wrote: But brown eyes "gradually" becoming blue?

[Image: Iris-Color-Transition.jpg]


"Gradual" is a main characteristic of evolution, and although in this case the genetic evidence indicates abrupt change, none of the transitional irises depicted above seem improbable.
The following 1 user Likes airportkid's post:
  • Thumpalumpacus
Reply
#71

Science News
The "multiple progenitors" route isn't ruled out, it's just less likely.
[Image: M-Spr20-Weapons-FEATURED-1-1200x350-c-default.jpg]
The following 1 user Likes Gawdzilla Sama's post:
  • Thumpalumpacus
Reply
#72

Science News
Scientists find microplastics in blood for first time

Quote:Scientists have discovered microplastics in human blood for the first time, warning that the ubiquitous particles could also be making their way into organs.

The tiny pieces of mostly invisible plastic have already been found almost everywhere else on Earth, from the deepest oceans to the highest mountains as well as in the air, soil and food chain.

A Dutch study published in the Environment International journal on Thursday examined blood samples from 22 anonymous, healthy volunteers and found microplastics in nearly 80 percent of them.

Fun. Deadpan Coffee Drinker

Predicting a new conspiracy theory that vaccines are causing this, or some bullshit.
“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” -Carl Sagan.
The following 1 user Likes GenesisNemesis's post:
  • SYZ
Reply
#73

Science News
(03-28-2022, 05:19 PM)GenesisNemesis Wrote: Scientists find microplastics in blood for first time

Quote:Scientists have discovered microplastics in human blood for the first time, warning that the ubiquitous particles could also be making their way into organs.

The tiny pieces of mostly invisible plastic have already been found almost everywhere else on Earth, from the deepest oceans to the highest mountains as well as in the air, soil and food chain.

A Dutch study published in the Environment International journal on Thursday examined blood samples from 22 anonymous, healthy volunteers and found microplastics in nearly 80 percent of them.

Fun. Deadpan Coffee Drinker

Predicting a new conspiracy theory that vaccines are causing this, or some bullshit.

Mountain-high though the difficulties appear, terrible and gloomy though all things seem, they are but Mâyâ.
Fear not — it is banished. Crush it, and it vanishes. Stamp upon it, and it dies.


Vivekananda
The following 1 user Likes Dānu's post:
  • GenesisNemesis
Reply
#74

Science News
It's obvious, the plastic has chosen us to create the new intelligent life in the Universe.
[Image: M-Spr20-Weapons-FEATURED-1-1200x350-c-default.jpg]
Reply
#75

Science News
The Hubble is still working...


https://www.rawstory.com/hubble-telescop...ever-seen/


Quote:Hubble telescope spots most distant star ever seen

The Hubble space telescope has peered back to the dawn of cosmic time and detected light from a star that existed within the first billion years after the Big Bang -- a new record, astronomers said Wednesday.

The newly discovered star, called "Earendel," is so far away its light has taken 12.9 billion years to reach Earth, when the universe was seven percent its current age.
"We almost didn't believe it at first, it was so much farther than the previous most distant," said astronomer Brian Welch of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, lead author of a paper in Nature describing the discovery.
The previous record holder was detected in 2018 when the universe was four billion years old.
Robert G. Ingersoll : “No man with a sense of humor ever founded a religion.”
The following 3 users Like Minimalist's post:
  • Alan V, Thumpalumpacus, GenesisNemesis
Reply




Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)