The Elegant Nature of Science 2.0

[Inkubus]

Michio Kaku never met a camera he didn't like.

[Cavebear]

Michio Kaku never met a camera he didn't like.

I agree with Michio Kaku that answers to questions are probably simpler than we think.  Every century or so, some person has an insight that is obvious in retrospect or test.  

Kepler:  Equal time through equal planetary orbit areas.

Newton:  The equation for universal gravitation.

Einstein:  E = mc2

Who is next? Because there has to be some simplification coming.

[Fireball]

Michio Kaku never met a camera he didn't like.

I agree with Michio Kaku that answers to questions are probably simpler than we think.  Every century or so, some person has an insight that is obvious in retrospect or test.  

Kepler:  Equal time through equal planetary orbit areas.

Newton:  The equation for universal gravitation.

Einstein:  E = mc2

Who is next?  Because there has to be some simplification coming.

The "simplification" has relied on better mathematics, in the cases of Newton (invented calculus to get the job done) and Einstein, who used tensor calculus and Riemannian geometry.

[Bucky Ball]

A giant leap foreword using gene-editing, (CRISPR).
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shot...stopped-it
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2107454

[Vera]

Dark wings supercharge seabird flight

"Most birds that swoop over ocean waters have one thing in common: dark wings. Now scientists think they know why. Dark feathers absorb more heat, which improves flight efficiency, allowing these birds to fly faster and longer than those with lighter-colored wings."


We had a nasty storm about a week ago and when I went biking the next day I saw that one of the (many) stork's nests in a nearby village had fallen   I did contact the responsible authorities (though this isn't our strong suit) and maybe the people who live there did too... Anyway, when I went there several days later, there was a mini-nest - I guess someone must have straightened the nesting platform* (as it was vertical after the storm) and maybe built a bit of a nest. So this made me feel a bit better... but there's been only one stork in the nestlet ever since... I'm afraid the rest of his/her family might have died. I didn't see any dead storks but the people living there might have taken them away... they might have been taken to a clinic for treatment but I think it would have made the local news and I haven't read anything...

All I know is, I'm really sad... hopefully the nest will get rebuilt for next year...

We're bound to be getting more nasty storms this summer, with this infernal heat... and now I'll be worried for the rest of the storks

* A lot of the lampposts have those platforms specifically for the storks to build their nests on:

[Vera]

(Whereas Musk would send a submarine *and* call the comet a pedophile )

[Inkubus]

(Whereas Musk would send a submarine *and* call the comet a pedophile )

Love it.
The final frame; I thought Bezos would encourage Branson to crash into it.

How long was Branson in space for? Depending on who you ask, either a matter of minutes or no time at all.

[Dānu]

In a medical first, researchers harnessed the brainwaves of a paralyzed man unable to speak and turned what he intended to say into sentences on a computer screen.

It will take years of additional research but the study, reported Wednesday, marks an important step toward one day restoring more natural communication for people who can’t talk because of injury or illness.

---

Chang’s team built on that work to develop a “speech neuroprosthetic” – a device that decodes the brainwaves that normally control the vocal tract, the tiny muscle movements of the lips, jaw, tongue and larynx that form each consonant and vowel.

The man who volunteered to test the device was in his late 30s. Fifteen years ago he suffered a brain-stem stroke that caused widespread paralysis and robbed him of speech. The researchers implanted electrodes on the surface of the man’s brain, over the area that controls speech.

A computer analyzed the patterns when he attempted to say common words such as “water” or “good”, eventually learning to differentiate between 50 words that could generate more than 1,000 sentences.

Prompted with such questions as “How are you today?” or “Are you thirsty” the device allowed the man to answer “I am very good” or “No I am not thirsty” – not voicing the words but translating them into text, the team reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.

It takes about three to four seconds for the word to appear on the screen after the man tries to say it, said lead author David Moses, an engineer in Chang’s lab. That’s not nearly as fast as speaking, but quicker than tapping out a response.

(The Guardian)

[Kim]

I heard about this on BBC yesterday - fascinating! The man must feel so relieved to be able to communicate again. He must have felt so trapped.

[Alan V]

New Scientist:

The oldest volcanic rock we have ever discovered may help us understand the building blocks of planets. The meteorite, which was discovered in the Sahara desert in 2020, dates from just 2 million years after the formation of the solar system – making it more than a million years older than the previous record-holder.

“I have been working on meteorites for more than 20 years now, and this is possibly the most fantastic new meteorite I have ever seen,” says Jean-Alix Barrat at the University of Western Brittany in France. When he and his colleagues analysed the meteorite, called Erg Chech 002 or EC 002, they found that it was unlike any other meteorite we have ever located.

It is a type of rock called andesite that, on Earth, is found mostly in subduction zones – areas where tectonic plates have collided and one has been pushed beneath the other – and rarely in meteorites. Most of the meteorites discovered on Earth are made of another kind of volcanic rock called basalt. Analysis of the chemical make-up of the new meteorite showed that it was once molten, and solidified nearly 4.6 billion years ago.

This means it was probably part of the crust of an ancient protoplanet that broke up early in the solar system’s past. No known asteroid looks like EC 002, which indicates that almost none of these relics still exist: nearly all of them have either crashed together to form planets or been smashed to bits.

[Inkubus]

Why do they say 'volcanic rock' and not magma. It's the same thing I know but volcanic rock shoots out of, well, volcanos and there were no volcanos at that point in solar system evolution.

[TheGentlemanBastard]

Why do they say 'volcanic rock' and not magma. It's the same thing I know but volcanic rock shoots out of, well, volcanos and there were no volcanos at that point in solar system evolution.

They call it volcanic rock because magma refers specifically to that rock in a liquid or semi-liquid form.

Calling it volcanic is still a bit of a misnomer since, as you pointed out, there weren't any volcanoes yet. But, there were plenty of ways to melt the rocks and I'm not sure we really have a good term for 'igneous rocks that used to be molten' other than volcanic.

[SYZ]

I'd assume it's described as "volcanic" rock because the meteorite's
origin was possibly from a volcano on another planetary body in the
solar system?   Maybe Venus, Io, Triton, or Enceladus?

—Dunno really    

[Bucky Ball]

This is a little exciting, who knows what will come of it ?
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20...114031.htm
"The algae actually produced so much oxygen that they could bring the nerve cells back to life, if you will,"

[Inkubus]

Aye that is curious I wonder what the algae are metabolising to produce the oxygen, it doesn't say.

[Fireball]

^ That would be CO2 from metabolic waste.

[Alan V]

CNN:

Inflation theory predicts that the microwaves of the CMB should be polarized. Just like ordinary light, microwaves are just wiggling electric and magnetic fields and if the wiggles are oriented in specific directions, the result is polarization. The CMB can be polarized in two ways: B-modes, which are swirly patterns, and E-modes, which are more of a straight-line pattern. And, if inflation theory is correct, we'd expect to see some mix of B-modes and E-modes, while if it isn't correct -- in other words, if the expansion of the universe did not happen as quickly as the theory suggests -- researchers should only see E-modes. This is because B-modes are caused by gravitational waves that would have shaken the early universe and would have been locked into our universe by inflation. Without inflation, we'd not see those primordial gravitational waves -- the evidence for them would have dissipated away.

Astronomers used a telescope facility called BICEP-3 (short for Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization) to study the CMB and its polarization. The telescope's South Pole location, with its altitude of nearly two miles above sea level and incredibly dry air, is an ideal place to conduct this kind of research. BICEP-3 scientists combined their data with measurements at other facilities and found no indication of B-modes originating from the CMB. If B-modes are present in the CMB, they are very small.

So, does that mean that the theory of inflation must be thrown out? No, although the data has disproved some of the simpler theories of inflation, it isn't sensitive enough to rule out the more complex versions. Still, the failure to observe CMB B-modes is unsettling, causing some scientists to go back to the drawing board.

[Alan V]

Wikipedia:

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a space telescope being jointly developed by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). It is planned to succeed the Hubble Space Telescope as NASA's Flagship astrophysics mission. JWST is scheduled to be launched on Wednesday 22 December 2021 during Ariane flight VA256; it will provide improved infrared resolution and sensitivity over Hubble, and will enable a broad range of investigations across the fields of astronomy and cosmology, including observing some of the most distant events and objects in the universe, such as the formation of the first galaxies, and detailed atmospheric characterization of potentially habitable exoplanets.

Since it has to move into a distant orbit so it won't be blinded by the infrared from the Earth, it won't be sending back pictures for a half year or so. It has a special shield to block light from the Sun.

[Bucky Ball]

Wikipedia:

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a space telescope being jointly developed by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). It is planned to succeed the Hubble Space Telescope as NASA's Flagship astrophysics mission. JWST is scheduled to be launched on Wednesday 22 December 2021 during Ariane flight VA256; it will provide improved infrared resolution and sensitivity over Hubble, and will enable a broad range of investigations across the fields of astronomy and cosmology, including observing some of the most distant events and objects in the universe, such as the formation of the first galaxies, and detailed atmospheric characterization of potentially habitable exoplanets.

Since it has to move into a distant orbit so it won't be blinded by the infrared from the Earth, it won't be sending back pictures for a half year or so.  It has a special shield to block light from the Sun.

It cost 10 billion dollars or so. Let's hope nothing goes wrong.

[SYZ]

Wikipedia:

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a space telescope being jointly developed by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). It is planned to succeed the Hubble Space Telescope as NASA's Flagship astrophysics mission. JWST is scheduled to be launched on Wednesday 22 December 2021 during Ariane flight VA256; it will provide improved infrared resolution and sensitivity over Hubble, and will enable a broad range of investigations across the fields of astronomy and cosmology, including observing some of the most distant events and objects in the universe, such as the formation of the first galaxies, and detailed atmospheric characterization of potentially habitable exoplanets.

Since it has to move into a distant orbit so it won't be blinded by the infrared from the Earth, it won't be sending back pictures for a half year or so.  It has a special shield to block light from the Sun.

It cost 10 billion dollars or so. Let's hope nothing goes wrong.

NASA's lifetime cost will be US$9.7 billion.  Just a thought here... would that money be
better spent on the exploration of the 71 per cent of the earth's surface that's covered
with oceans?  Could it be that what we can farm from the oceans and how we can use
salt water (in a more technologically-advanced near future) be the logical way to go?

Its tasks include "observing some of the most distant events and objects in the universe ".
How exactly does this help us solve the escalating negative effects of climate change—increasing
droughts, wild fires and flooding, tornadoes, lack of potable water, crop failures and death
rates here on the planet, with its "self-contained" fragile ecosystem?

[Bucky Ball]

Since it has to move into a distant orbit so it won't be blinded by the infrared from the Earth, it won't be sending back pictures for a half year or so.  It has a special shield to block light from the Sun.

It cost 10 billion dollars or so. Let's hope nothing goes wrong.

NASA's lifetime cost will be US$9.7 billion.  Just a thought here... would that money be
better spent on the exploration of the 71 per cent of the earth's surface that's covered
with oceans?  Could it be that what we can farm from the oceans and how we can use
salt water (in a more technologically-advanced near future) be the logical way to go?

Its tasks include "observing some of the most distant events and objects in the universe ".
How exactly does this help us solve the escalating negative effects of climate change—increasing
droughts, wild fires and flooding, tornadoes, lack of potable water, crop failures and death
rates here on the planet, with its "self-contained" fragile ecosystem?

It's not a zero sum thing. Other money should be spent on the things you mention.
Humanity needs to stretch it's imagination.
The US needs huge desalination plants up and down the West Coast, to solve the water shortage.
It's entirely possible. Israel did it.

[Bucky Ball]

Beaming solar energy from space to Earth.
https://www.defensenews.com/battlefield-...-to-earth/
One vaccine for all the COVID and SARS variants.
https://www.defenseone.com/technology/20...ts/360089/

[Thingymebob]

I can't wrap my head around the complexities of the universe.
So I eat cake and smoke and put it to the back of my mind.
I've come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter how much or how little we know.
Nothing will change in reality.

[Bucky Ball]

I can't wrap my head around the complexities of the universe.
So I eat cake and smoke and put it to the back of my mind.
I've come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter how much or how little we know.
Nothing will change in reality.

You changed, and a great deal has changed in reality. A very very great deal indeed.
Your brain changed, knowing about galaxies, supernovae, quasars, relativity, knowing that complexity, knowing about dark matter and dark energy,
about uncertainty and entanglement, ... knowing that the fundamentals of quantum mechanics do not appear to be intuitive/logical to the human brain, knowing reality does not follow what we think is "logical", (thus destroying ALL the arguments of religious fundies, who claim their gods are "necessary" because their logic demands it, knowing the Pauli Exclusion Principle, knowing that electrons are waves, knowing there is a Higgs boson, and even knowing this : which we heard about yesterday : https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/21/asia/baby...index.html , knowing about "spooky action at a distance" (entanglement), , knowing that Archaeology and chemistry and physics have debunked virtually all of two (maybe three) of the world's major religious groups' historical claims, knowing there may be other universes and how we might detect them, We know all kinds of things about medicine, genetics and neuro-science we didn't know, even twenty years ago. If you came in to the ED with a basilar artery stroke, they could pull out the clot, and you would go home (walking out the door), in a couple days, instead of living as a vegie for the rest of your life, in a nursing home. You're 100 % wrong. Everything changes.

[Alan V]

I can't wrap my head around the complexities of the universe.

No one person can wrap their head around the complexities of the universe.  That's why we have so many specialists.  That's why we explore.  That's why we communicate with each other -- to at least try to understand in general.

These days, learning is a life-long endeavor even for the well-informed.

So lucky for you that you now have access to a forum full of mostly smart and well-informed people.