Science news of the day

Technology, computers, sciences, mysteries and phenomena of all kinds, etc., etc. all here at The Loresraat!!

Moderator: Vraith

Post Reply
User avatar
Damelon
Lord
Posts: 8540
Joined: Fri Dec 13, 2002 10:40 pm
Location: Illinois
Has thanked: 2 times
Been thanked: 4 times

Science news of the day

Post by Damelon »

A NASA spacecraft will swing by Earth on Sunday

CNN
—
This Sunday, a spacecraft called Lucy will be in the sky – just without diamonds.

NASA’s Lucy spacecraft will skirt Earth, coming within just a few hundred miles of us on its journey to the far-off Jupiter Trojan asteroids.

The spacecraft will pass 220 miles above Earth’s surface on Sunday morning, according to a news release from NASA.

And some lucky observers will be able to spot Lucy from Earth, says NASA.

The asteroid-hopping spacecraft will be visible from western Australia at around 6:55 AM EST. But it’ll pass out of view after a few minutes. At 7:26 AM EST, it should be visible in the western United States – assuming the skies are clear and sky-gazers have a decent pair of binoculars.

Coming so close to the Earth will require the spacecraft to navigate an area dense with satellites and debris. NASA is implementing special procedures to prevent Lucy from knocking into anything on its journey.

“The Lucy team has prepared two different maneuvers,� said Coralie Adam, the team chief for the Lucy deputy navigation team from KinetX Aerospace, in the release. “If the team detects that Lucy is at risk of colliding with a satellite or piece of debris, then – 12 hours before the closest approach to Earth – the spacecraft will execute one of these, altering the time of closest approach by either two or four seconds.
Image
User avatar
Damelon
Lord
Posts: 8540
Joined: Fri Dec 13, 2002 10:40 pm
Location: Illinois
Has thanked: 2 times
Been thanked: 4 times

Post by Damelon »

NASA’s Swift, Fermi Missions Detect Exceptional Cosmic Blast
Astronomers around the world are captivated by an unusually bright and long-lasting pulse of high-energy radiation that swept over Earth Sunday, Oct. 9. The emission came from a gamma-ray burst (GRB) – the most powerful class of explosions in the universe – that ranks among the most luminous events known.

On Sunday morning Eastern time, a wave of X-rays and gamma rays passed through the solar system, triggering detectors aboard NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, and Wind spacecraft, as well as others. Telescopes around the world turned to the site to study the aftermath, and new observations continue.

Called GRB 221009A, the explosion provided an unexpectedly exciting start to the 10th Fermi Symposium, a gathering of gamma-ray astronomers now underway in Johannesburg, South Africa. “It’s safe to say this meeting really kicked off with a bang – everyone’s talking about this,� said Judy Racusin, a Fermi deputy project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who is attending the conference.

Called GRB 221009A, the explosion provided an unexpectedly exciting start to the 10th Fermi Symposium, a gathering of gamma-ray astronomers now underway in Johannesburg, South Africa. “It’s safe to say this meeting really kicked off with a bang – everyone’s talking about this,� said Judy Racusin, a Fermi deputy project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who is attending the conference.

The signal, originating from the direction of the constellation Sagitta, had traveled an estimated 1.9 billion years to reach Earth. Astronomers think it represents the birth cry of a new black hole, one that formed in the heart of a massive star collapsing under its own weight. In these circumstances, a nascent black hole drives powerful jets of particles traveling near the speed of light. The jets pierce through the star, emitting X-rays and gamma rays as they stream into space.
Image
User avatar
Avatar
Immanentizing The Eschaton
Posts: 61651
Joined: Mon Aug 02, 2004 9:17 am
Location: Johannesburg, South Africa
Has thanked: 13 times
Been thanked: 19 times

Post by Avatar »

Astronomers spot black hole spewing out material three YEARS after shredding a star
A black hole has been spotted ejecting material three years after consuming a star, in what astronomers are comparing to a cosmic burp.

Ordinarily, this sort of phenomenon would be witnessed during the event, and the Harvard University researchers are still unsure why the delay has occurred.
--A
User avatar
Damelon
Lord
Posts: 8540
Joined: Fri Dec 13, 2002 10:40 pm
Location: Illinois
Has thanked: 2 times
Been thanked: 4 times

Post by Damelon »

Live Brain Cells Playing Pong in a Dish Could Illuminate Mind's Mechanics

Some mad scientists down under….
Scientists have created a gamer -- out of cells, in a lab.

An Australian-led team of researchers placed 800,000 live human and mouse brain cells into a dish, connected them to electrodes and a simulation of the classic game Pong. The scientists then watched as the mini-mind quickly taught itself the game and improved the more it practiced. They were able to follow along by converting the cellular responses into a visual depiction of the game that looks much like the original.

They call their system DishBrain, and say it proves neurons in a dish could learn and display basic signs of intelligence. The team details the new setup, dubbed synthetic biological intelligence, or SBI, in a study published Wednesday in the journal Neuron.

Eventually, the authors say, SBI could help unlock longstanding mysteries of brain mechanics and lead to better treatments for certain neurological conditions. "DishBrain offers a simpler approach to test how the brain works and gain insights into debilitating conditions such as epilepsy and dementia," says Hon Weng Chong, chief executive officer of biotech start-up Cortical Labs.
Image
User avatar
Fist and Faith
Magister Vitae
Posts: 23439
Joined: Sun Dec 01, 2002 8:14 pm
Has thanked: 6 times
Been thanked: 30 times

Post by Fist and Faith »

I read about DishBrain the other day here:
https://evadeli.blogspot.com/2022/10/hu ... n.html?m=1

It says this:
Electrical pulses sent to the neurons indicated the position of the ball in the game. The array then moved the paddle up and down based on signals from the neurons. DishBrain received a strong and consistent feedback signal (a form of stimulus) when the paddle hit the ball and a short, random pulse when it missed.
I wonder why DishBrain cares about the game at all. Obviously, it doesn't know it's playing a game. It doesn't have any concept of games. Also, why does it prefer the one type of feedback over the other. What makes it want the strong and consistent feedback?
All lies and jest
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest
-Paul Simon
User avatar
Damelon
Lord
Posts: 8540
Joined: Fri Dec 13, 2002 10:40 pm
Location: Illinois
Has thanked: 2 times
Been thanked: 4 times

Post by Damelon »

First known map of night sky found hidden in Medieval parchment

This is how they’ve found a lot of ancient writings, underneath medieval religious texts.
A medieval parchment from a monastery in Egypt has yielded a surprising treasure. Hidden beneath Christian texts, scholars have discovered what seems to be part of the long-lost star catalogue of the astronomer Hipparchus — believed to be the earliest known attempt to map the entire sky.

Scholars have been searching for Hipparchus’s catalogue for centuries. James Evans, a historian of astronomy at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington, describes the find as “rare� and “remarkable�. The extract is published online this week in the Journal for the History of Astronomy1. Evans says it proves that Hipparchus, often considered the greatest astronomer of ancient Greece, really did map the heavens centuries before other known attempts. It also illuminates a crucial moment in the birth of science, when astronomers shifted from simply describing the patterns they saw in the sky to measuring and predicting them.

The manuscript came from the Greek Orthodox St Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt, but most of its 146 leaves, or folios, are now owned by the Museum of the Bible in Washington DC. The pages contain the Codex Climaci Rescriptus, a collection of Syriac texts written in the tenth or eleventh centuries. But the codex is a palimpsest: parchment that was scraped clean of older text by the scribe so that it could be reused.

The older writing was thought to contain further Christian texts and, in 2012, biblical scholar Peter Williams at the University of Cambridge, UK, asked his students to study the pages as a summer project. One of them, Jamie Klair, unexpectedly spotted a passage in Greek often attributed to the astronomer Eratosthenes. In 2017, the pages were re-analysed using state-of-the-art multispectral imaging. Researchers at the Early Manuscripts Electronic Library in Rolling Hills Estates, California, and the University of Rochester in New York took 42 photographs of each page in varying wavelengths of light, and used computer algorithms to search for combinations of frequencies that enhanced the hidden text.
Image
User avatar
Damelon
Lord
Posts: 8540
Joined: Fri Dec 13, 2002 10:40 pm
Location: Illinois
Has thanked: 2 times
Been thanked: 4 times

Post by Damelon »

Genetic sequencing gives us the first-ever look at a Neanderthal clan
One of the things that makes us special as a species is our ability to form communities, but we humans have not always been alone in that regard. A new study sheds light on how Neanderthals built clans of their own.…

But Skov and his colleagues were eventually able to extract the genetic codes of 13 Neanderthals living in the cave, including several who were related: A father and his teenage daughter, as well as a boy around the age of 10 who was related to a woman in the cave. (That "second-degree" relationship is a little more fuzzy, Skov says: "They could for instance be cousins, they could be grandparent/grandchild, they could be aunt/nephew, all those kinds of things.").

It's the first time that Neanderthal relatives have been sequenced side-by-side. Skov says that the DNA of the individuals living in the cave also provides some clues about how the society might have been organized. By looking at mitochondrial DNA, which is only passed along by females, and Y chromosomes, which come from males, Skov and his colleagues were able to determine that the women were more likely to have come from outside the group. In other words, Neanderthal society may have been organized in a way where women moved to be with the family of the men.
Image
User avatar
Damelon
Lord
Posts: 8540
Joined: Fri Dec 13, 2002 10:40 pm
Location: Illinois
Has thanked: 2 times
Been thanked: 4 times

Post by Damelon »

A skyscraper-sized 'potentially hazardous' asteroid will zip through Earth's orbit on Halloween

A newly discovered, "potentially hazardous" asteroid almost the size of the world's tallest skyscraper is set to tumble past Earth just in time for Halloween, according to NASA.

The asteroid, called 2022 RM4, has an estimated diameter of between 1,083 and 2,428 feet (330 and 740 meters) — just under the height of Dubai's 2,716-foot-tall (828 m) Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. It will zoom past our planet at around 52,500 mph (84,500 km/h), or roughly 68 times the speed of sound, according to NASA (opens in new tab).

At its closest approach on Nov. 1, the asteroid will come within about 1.43 million miles (2.3 million kilometers) of Earth, around six times the average distance between Earth and the moon. By cosmic standards, this is a very slender margin.
Image
User avatar
Damelon
Lord
Posts: 8540
Joined: Fri Dec 13, 2002 10:40 pm
Location: Illinois
Has thanked: 2 times
Been thanked: 4 times

Post by Damelon »

I thin I’ve heard about this before.

All Bananas Really Are Radioactive. An Expert Explains What That Means
The simple mention of the word "radiation" often evokes fear in people. For others, it's fun to think a little exposure to radiation could turn you into the next superhero, just like the Hulk.

But is it true basically everything around us is radioactive, even the food we eat? You may have heard bananas are mildly radioactive, but what does that actually mean? And despite us not being superheroes, are human bodies also radioactive?

What is radiation?
Radiation is energy that travels from one point to another, either as waves or particles. We are exposed to radiation from various natural and artificial sources every day.

Cosmic radiation from the Sun and outer space, radiation from rocks and soil, as well as radioactivity in the air we breathe and in our food and water, are all sources of natural radiation.

Bananas are a common example of a natural radiation source. They contain high levels of potassium, and a small amount of this is radioactive. But there's no need to give up your banana smoothie – the amount of radiation is extremely small, and far less than the natural "background radiation" we are exposed to every day.

Artificial sources of radiation include medical treatments and X-rays, mobile phones and power lines. There is a common misconception that artificial sources of radiation are more dangerous than naturally occurring radiation. However, this just isn't true.

There are no physical properties that make artificial radiation different or more damaging than natural radiation. The harmful effects are related to dose, and not where the exposure comes from.
Image
User avatar
Damelon
Lord
Posts: 8540
Joined: Fri Dec 13, 2002 10:40 pm
Location: Illinois
Has thanked: 2 times
Been thanked: 4 times

Post by Damelon »

Damelon wrote:I think I’ve heard about this before.

All Bananas Really Are Radioactive. An Expert Explains What That Means
The simple mention of the word "radiation" often evokes fear in people. For others, it's fun to think a little exposure to radiation could turn you into the next superhero, just like the Hulk.

But is it true basically everything around us is radioactive, even the food we eat? You may have heard bananas are mildly radioactive, but what does that actually mean? And despite us not being superheroes, are human bodies also radioactive?

What is radiation?
Radiation is energy that travels from one point to another, either as waves or particles. We are exposed to radiation from various natural and artificial sources every day.

Cosmic radiation from the Sun and outer space, radiation from rocks and soil, as well as radioactivity in the air we breathe and in our food and water, are all sources of natural radiation.

Bananas are a common example of a natural radiation source. They contain high levels of potassium, and a small amount of this is radioactive. But there's no need to give up your banana smoothie – the amount of radiation is extremely small, and far less than the natural "background radiation" we are exposed to every day.

Artificial sources of radiation include medical treatments and X-rays, mobile phones and power lines. There is a common misconception that artificial sources of radiation are more dangerous than naturally occurring radiation. However, this just isn't true.

There are no physical properties that make artificial radiation different or more damaging than natural radiation. The harmful effects are related to dose, and not where the exposure comes from.
Image
User avatar
Fist and Faith
Magister Vitae
Posts: 23439
Joined: Sun Dec 01, 2002 8:14 pm
Has thanked: 6 times
Been thanked: 30 times

Post by Fist and Faith »

Didn't know. Interesting. There are many foods with more potassium than bananas. I guess they're all radioactive, too.
All lies and jest
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest
-Paul Simon
User avatar
Cord Hurn
Servant of the Band
Posts: 7630
Joined: Mon Oct 28, 2013 7:08 pm
Location: Tucson, Arizona, USA
Has thanked: 6 times
Been thanked: 4 times

Post by Cord Hurn »

Interesting, indeed, and I'd never have guessed. The potassium from bananas is something I like to ingest at times to prevent painful muscle cramps from the hiking that I do. If the minute amount of radioactivity aids the muscle relief, I figure so much the better.

:banana:
Post Reply

Return to “The Loresraat”