The Elegant Nature of Science 2.0

[Alan V]

" The discovery of a fossilized fish may offer a glimpse into the day an asteroid hit the earth and wiped dinosaurs off the planet 66 million years ago, according to a new study. The 'exquisitely-preserved' fossils, some of which are of fish with hot glass in their gills, were found in North Dakota's Hell Creek Formation and are thought to have formed after an asteroid slammed into Mexico, causing flaming debris to rain onto the ground, according to a press release from the University of Kansas."

https://abcnews.go.com/US/discovery-foss...card_image

[Vera]

New species of early human found in the Philippines

"An international team of researchers have uncovered the remains of a new species of human in the Philippines, proving the region played a key role in hominin evolutionary history.

The new species, Homo luzonensis is named after Luzon Island, where the more than 50,000 year old fossils were found during excavations at Callao Cave."

[...]

"It's quite incredible, the extremities, that is the hand and feet bones are remarkably Australopithecine-like. The Australopithecines last walked the earth in Africa about 2 million years ago and are considered to be the ancestors of the Homo group, which includes modern humans.

"So, the question is whether some of these features evolved as adaptations to island life, or whether they are anatomical traits passed down to Homo luzonensis from their ancestors over the preceding 2 million years."

While there are still plenty of questions around the origins of Homo luzonensis, and their longevity on the island of Luzon, recent excavations near Callao Cave produced evidence of a butchered rhinoceros and stone tools dating to around 700,000 years ago.

"No hominin fossils were recovered, but this does provide a timeframe for a hominin presence on Luzon. Whether it was Homo luzonensis butchering and eating the rhinoceros remains to be seen," Professor Piper said.
"It makes the whole region really significant. The Philippines is made up of a group of large islands that have been separated long enough to have potentially facilitated archipelago speciation. There is no reason why archaeological research in the Philippines couldn't discover several species of hominin. It's probably just a matter of time."

Homo luzonensis shares some unique skeletal features with the famous Homo floresiensis or 'the hobbit', discovered on the island of Flores to the south east of the Philippine archipelago.

In addition, stone tools dating to around 200,000 years ago have been found on the island of Sulawesi, meaning that ancient hominins potentially inhabited many of the large islands of Southeast Asia.

[Alan V]

"To come up with his measurement of the Hubble constant, Riess looked to some not-so-distant stars. Riess observed 70 Cepheid stars — stars that pulse at a well-observed rate — calculated their distance and rate, and then compared them with a certain type of supernovae that are used as measuring sticks. It took about two years for the Hubble telescope to make these measurements, but eventually Riess calculated an expansion rate of 74. Using that 74 figure means the universe is somewhere between 12.5 billion and 13 billion years old. That's much younger than the established estimates of 13.6 billion to 13.8 billion."

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/stud...r-62656475

[brewerb]

I like it when multiple disciplines come together.

[Kim]

While a young person, I saw this image. I instantly understood it and found it inspiring...

It's one of the first images of an atom being smashed at the Brookhaven accelerator.
I still find it utterly thrilling.  
There are many similar images out there and I could look at them all day.

[Bucky Ball]

New species of early human found in the Philippines

"An international team of researchers have uncovered the remains of a new species of human in the Philippines, proving the region played a key role in hominin evolutionary history.

The new species, Homo luzonensis is named after Luzon Island, where the more than 50,000 year old fossils were found during excavations at Callao Cave."

[...]

"It's quite incredible, the extremities, that is the hand and feet bones are remarkably Australopithecine-like. The Australopithecines last walked the earth in Africa about 2 million years ago and are considered to be the ancestors of the Homo group, which includes modern humans.

"So, the question is whether some of these features evolved as adaptations to island life, or whether they are anatomical traits passed down to Homo luzonensis from their ancestors over the preceding 2 million years."

While there are still plenty of questions around the origins of Homo luzonensis, and their longevity on the island of Luzon, recent excavations near Callao Cave produced evidence of a butchered rhinoceros and stone tools dating to around 700,000 years ago.

"No hominin fossils were recovered, but this does provide a timeframe for a hominin presence on Luzon. Whether it was Homo luzonensis butchering and eating the rhinoceros remains to be seen," Professor Piper said.
"It makes the whole region really significant. The Philippines is made up of a group of large islands that have been separated long enough to have potentially facilitated archipelago speciation. There is no reason why archaeological research in the Philippines couldn't discover several species of hominin. It's probably just a matter of time."

Homo luzonensis shares some unique skeletal features with the famous Homo floresiensis or 'the hobbit', discovered on the island of Flores to the south east of the Philippine archipelago.

In addition, stone tools dating to around 200,000 years ago have been found on the island of Sulawesi, meaning that ancient hominins potentially inhabited many of the large islands of Southeast Asia.

I heard they found about two dozen pairs of shoes with these fossils. 

[Bucky Ball]

A big fishy embarrassingly washes up on a California beach.    

A Hoodwinker-sunfish washes up on a California beach and yes, hoodwinks everyone.  

From what reading I've done, the sunfish family can be quite confusing to correctly identify.  Apparently, this guy isn't supposed to be in the northern hemisphere, at all.  Pretty steathy for a 7 ft fish to wind up on the other side of the planet.

Hey - maybe he's making a personal statement about immigration.  

It was probably looking for a sanctuary city.

[Bucky Ball]

https://gizmodo.com/gravitational-wave-d...1834476177
So Cal Tech was playing in their Lego Lab, and look what they found ?
Oh wait, it's not the Lego Lab.

[Vera]

Indian Ocean's Last Surviving Flightless Bird Repeats Evolution

"This remarkably uncommon process is classified as iterative evolution, a process in which the same ancestor evolves into the same species at different points in history.

A study published Wednesday reveals that the white-throated rail that inhabits the Aldabra Atoll in the Indian Ocean has repeated the 'course of evolution' after being wiped from existence some 136,000 years ago.
The bird's lineage originated in Madagascar, flew to Aldabra some 250 miles away, and likely remained on the island due to lack of predators. Another result of the newfound safety is that the bird evolved to become flightless.

A flood reportedly wiped the species from the island, but when land reemerged, another flock from Madagascar arrived and begin the 'course of evolution' again.

Researchers have found fossils of the bird from before and after the floods, both of which showed that the 'course of evolution' resulted in the bird losing the ability to fly."

[Thumpalumpacus]

While a young person, I saw this image.  I instantly understood it and found it inspiring...

It's one of the first images of an atom being smashed at the Brookhaven accelerator.
I still find it utterly thrilling.   
There are many similar images out there and I could look at them all day.  

Funny, the first thing I thought was a Bach fugue: curlicues inside curlicues.

[Bucky Ball]

This is amazing. An image from the NICER detector.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/03/world/nas...index.html
Of course it detected moi.

[Vera]

The funny side of nature

[skyking]

https://gizmodo.com/gravitational-wave-d...1834476177
So Cal Tech was playing in their Lego Lab, and look what they found ?
Oh wait, it's not the Lego Lab.

I can't imagine they knew how frequently they were going to detect something.
I see them sitting around, OK, it's on!
Time to go make some coffee....wtf was that?
And THAT!

[Alan V]

"Scientists led by Scott S. Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science announced the discovery of a dozen moons around Jupiter, bringing the total number orbiting the solar system’s largest planet to 79."

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/18/scien...moons.html

[grympy]

Jary, a captive hornbill in Singapore, has been given a 3D-printed prosthetic bill after surgery to remove cancerous tissue.




In July, staff at Jurong Bird Park noticed an 8cm gash on the 22-year-old male Great Pied Hornbill's casque and suspected the bird might be suffering from cancer.

Much of the tissue under Jary's casque had been destroyed by the disease.

The outlook was bleak - of two previous hornbill cancer cases at the park, one bird died after chemotherapy while the other's cancer had progressed too far for treatment.

Jary underwent a scan...





... and a biopsy of the cancer-affected tissue was taken.

Analysis of the biopsy confirmed it was cancer and surgeons decided to remove all the cancerous growth.

A complete new prosthetic casque was printed for Jary.

Dr Hsu Li Chieh then removed Jary's casque with an oscillating saw.

Afterwards, dental resin was applied to the new casque to seal any gaps.

Jary's new casque has since turned yellow after he coloured it using pigment from his yellow tail, zoo officials say.

The bird was given the name Jary because it means "helmeted warrior" in the ancient Norse language.

Jary the hornbill was discharged from hospital in September. His prosthesis will remain until he grows a new casque.

WOW! Am I right in thinking the full potential of 3D printing has not been anything like discovered?

Someone once wrote something like; To the ignorant  mind, technology seems  like magic. It does to my ignorant mind. --I was six when we got our first fridge, 13, our first b&w TV. I saw  a man walk on the moon, as it happened-ish. 

Although I began using computers for work (DOS) in 1982, and today use four operating systems, computers still seem like magic to me.   

I won't even start with  the magic of geriatric science over the last 60 years ---My grandfather died  at 74 in 1956, dad at 87 in 2006, and mum at 92, in 2019.  I'm cautiously optimistic about my possible longevity. I hoping for 80,  and still  compos mentis. 

Even though I'm an atheist  I  still appreciate the magic of my existence ,never taking it ,or tomorrow ,for granted .
 There's an old saying in Australia " Fair dinkum, I wouldn't be dead for quids" 

Sorry to meander so far off topic. Please feel free to say so if this annoys you, and I'll  try not to do so in future

[Bucky Ball]

Tidal turbines ... clean power.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/27/tidal-tu...ter%7Cmain

[Alan V]

https://www.scientificamerican.com/artic...Pa_OmJUfDs

This new study compared the stories of 625 individuals who reported NDEs with the stories of more than 15,000 individuals who had taken one of 165 different psychoactive drugs. When those stories were linguistically analyzed, similarities were found between recollections of near-death and drug experiences for those who had taken a specific class of drug. One drug in particular, ketamine, led to experiences very similar to NDE. This may mean that the near-death experience may reflect changes in the same chemical system in the brain that is targeted by drugs like ketamine.

[Bucky Ball]

It bubbles. Bubbles they say.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...at/598552/

[Bucky Ball]

Friendly black holes.
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/10/rotatin...ce-travel/

[Phaedrus]

Astronaut Scott Kelly playing water pong in space.

[Alan V]

https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/22/world/fif...index.html

Essentially the entirety of physics centers on four forces that control our known, visible universe, governing everything from the production of heat in the sun to the way your laptop works. They are gravity, electromagnetism, the weak nuclear force, and the strong force.

New research may be leading us closer to one more.

Scientists at the Institute for Nuclear Research at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (Atomki) have posted findings showing what could be an example of that fifth force at work.

The scientists were closely watching how an excited helium atom emitted light as it decayed. The particles split at an unusual angle, 115 degrees, which couldn't be explained by known physics.

The study's lead scientist, Attila Krasznahorkay, told CNN that this was the second time his team had detected a new particle, which they call X17, because they calculated its mass at 17 megaelectronvolts.

"X17 could be a particle, which connects our visible world with the dark matter," he said in an email.

Jonathan Feng, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Irvine, told CNN he's been following the Hungarian team's work for years, and believes their research is shaping up to be a game changer.

If these results can be replicated, "this would be a no-brainer Nobel Prize," he said.

[Inkubus]

Oh what joy. Now wait till the preachers, the psychics and the rest of the woomeisters latch on to this.

[Alan V]

https://www.sciencealert.com/an-impossib...way-galaxy

A new black hole search method has just yielded fruit, and boy is it juicy. Astronomers have found a stellar-mass black hole clocking in at around 70 times the mass of the Sun - but according to current models of stellar evolution, its size is impossible, at least in the Milky Way.

The chemical composition of our galaxy's most massive stars suggests that they lose most of their mass at the end of their lives through explosions and powerful stellar winds, before the star's core collapses into a black hole.

The hefty stars in the mass range that could produce a black hole are expected to end their lives in what is called a pair-instability supernova that completely obliterates the stellar core. So astronomers are scratching their heads trying to figure out how the black hole - named LB-1 - got so chonky.

"Black holes of such mass should not even exist in our galaxy, according to most of the current models of stellar evolution," said astronomer Jifeng Liu of the National Astronomical Observatory of China.

"LB-1 is twice as massive as what we thought possible. Now theorists will have to take up the challenge of explaining its formation."

[Deesse23]

18.000y old puppy found in siberian permafrost. Probably oldest dog we know of

Scientists are mapping its DNA to establish whether it is the oldest dog found, a wolf or something in between. A first round of genetic testing was unable to determine its species.

[jerry mcmasters]

18.000y old puppy found in siberian permafrost. Probably oldest dog we know of

Scientists are mapping its DNA to establish whether it is the oldest dog found, a wolf or something in between. A first round of genetic testing was unable to determine its species.

Dogs are such a powerful and useful instrument to illustrate evolution.  If humans can create so much canine variety in a few hundred years what nature must be able to do with any living thing over millions.

Question for science enthusiasts:  Are dogs soon to diverge specially?  You breed super small ones and super big ones you are going to (if we haven't already, I don't know) reach the point of sexual parts not working or insemination not taking.  Do giant german shepherds or whatever have sex with the little ones?  When this divergence takes hold and you end up with two species, which one gets to keep the name "dogs"?  One of them will be "not-dogs" and will need a new designation/species name.