Random Science News Thread

[Vraith]

This could go somewhere pretty fast,
I'm surprised it hadn't been done already...
news.yahoo.com/scientists-mathematical-shortcut-create-metals-193421358.html

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Most likely no one had thought of doing that sort of modeling before.

I am a fan of metallic glass, myself--special alloys that are cooled so quickly that the molecular lattice doesn't have time to form any regular patterned structure.

[Vraith]

Heh...sillyish title for the article, but still cool.
I'm always fascinated when stuff that is ignored or labeled meaningless suddenly turns out to be really important.
news.yahoo.com/occupy-comes-dna-genome-99-percent-170837807.html

And this stuff looks fun, too.
Besides the uses they mention, there are probably tons of uses for a material both very strong AND very stretchy [if it isn't too expensive to make].
news.yahoo.com/super-stretchy-material-super-strong-182618472.html

[Vraith]

Let the FUN[damentals] continue!

Not too long ago, a new fundamental force was [fairly certainly] murdered.
Tragedy, for all of course.
BUT...despair not! Another, originally spotted slinking around in the math, may be real, we may have found some scat to track it by.

[Vraith]

Just a few things that have popped up recently:

You STILL think life might be hard to come by?
It seems, right now, thanks to new observations and data consolidation,
there are at LEAST 30 million [[I know, people aren't impressed by mere millions anymore...they should be since it's shown most don't even accurately understand thousands without thinking about it HARD]] planets that are 'earth-like' in our galaxy ALONE. [earth-like means very close to our size, the right distance from the sun, same chemical availability [like, but not only, water, carbon, nitrogen].
[[odds of us meeting...even detecting...intelligent aliens? Probably still pretty low...but I really really really want to]]

Evidence that many legal drugs are deadly, unpleasant, and don't improve health, while many Illegal drugs are safe, pleasant and DO improve health is stacking up in exponential, instead of merely linear, fashion...

Out of body experiences are REAL...
Not necessarily in the sense of moving your spirit to another part of the world...but a real brain state, and like almost every brain state has useful functions.

Universal facial expressions aren't/haven't been all that universal...the data was bad. HOWEVER: my speculation...it is BECOMING so...because people globally are more and more seeing the faces and emotions of other people globally.

Evanescent light seems to have some very odd attributes that might lead interesting places [no one seems to be saying where, yet...at least not in any non-pay database/journal articles]
Hopefully some fun will come out of this...unlike when I thought Evanescence song "Bring me to Life" was really bring me to LIGHT, and that the band might have some ideas. Neither was true.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

It is fascinating with the planets, especially since on at least on exoplanet the data seems to show that water vapor exists in its atmosphere. If there is water vapor in the atmosphere then there could be liquid water on the surface and if there is liquid water on the surface then it could contain Life As We Know It.

It will still be a long while before we make contact with any non-terrestrial species, though. Traversing interstellar distances is almost unbelievably difficult without some sort of FTL drive, jump drive, or dimensional gate.

[Vraith]

Let's talk about graphene. I know we have before...
thought there was a thread on it, but I guess not.

Here's a brief yahoo article with some potentials for it:
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/why-you-non- ... 72974.html

On top of those, I've seen some others...such as making the electrodes for brain-to-machine connections. The ones used on the now-famous woman with the robot arm were damn small...but still could only do something like 10 connections in the space where our neurons do 1000 or so. Graphene can do a lot more...and it is bendy so it doesn't get displaced when your brain jiggles.

But it was hard and expensive to make except in little pieces. Until this, that I ran across yesterday, which could make it cheap, easy, and mass-producible.

www.extremetech.com/extreme/183286-rese ... ray-system
And if that wasn't cool enough, it has a cousin that, instead of being "sheets" is "strings":
www.extremetech.com/extreme/163997-carb ... n-graphene

And, going back to the life-supporting planet thing, the number more than tripled [potentially] to 100 million [and that may be a low-side estimate] according to these folk [one of them from your neck of the woods, Hashi...kinda...El Paso.]
www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/100-mi ... 98/?no-ist

Unfortunately, even that many still means what I said before [and they say it, too] Odds of E.T.=VERY YES. Odds of us meeting them? Not so good. [[though it does up the chances of at least being able to detect them...and maybe have a conversation with extremely long pauses.]]

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Their estimates seem very reasonable. The question as to whether or not those planets have indigenous species with a technology level similar to our own depends upon the ages of the stars in question. If we presume that any nova or supernova destroys all life on a star's planets then any star whose age is comparable to our own should have more advanced species. How old is our star, 3, 4, 5 billion? We can probably rule out any stars which are dwarfs or giants...but maybe the researchers did that already. Anyway...since there is no definitive proof of being visited by any other species we may rationally conclude that those species either do not have the ability to traverse interstellar distances or they simply haven't gotten to our area of the galaxy yet; my suspicion is the former--they don't have the capability.

Now it gets a little weird. If their technology is comparable to ours then they may have detected our planet as an exoplanet (from their point of view) capable of supporting intelligent life above the microbial level. They may also be asking the same questions and working from the same presumptions that we are trying to figure out the likelihood that we exist.
That being said, if we can detect an exoplanet that means that we can detect emissions from that planet which means that if they are sending out signals (probably by radio) in an attempt to be found then we should be able to pick up those signals. I think China is working on a radio telescope which will dwarf Arecibo (I have to double-check this); if they are, then that telescope might be able to resolve radio emissions from exoplanets. As far as I know, we haven't found any such signals--if we had then that is all that we would be hearing on the news at this time.

Once we find an extraplanetary species with a relatively advanced civilization and/or technology then we need to put as much energy into getting off-world as quickly we can. We cannot afford for that species to come knock on our door--history on Earth has taught us that when two civilizations meet the one with the more advanced technology wins all the time. We *must* meet them "halfway". Beyond that, it is impossible to make any guesses about their motivations or psychology.

[peter]

I read the following in a news magazine I take.

In the 1970's the average woman took a size four shoe; today she is a six, reports the Guardian. The typical mn now has size ten feet, up from size eight. medical experts say the change is down to people getting heavier and taller.

Correct me if I'm wrong - but isn't this Lamarkism?

[Vraith]

I read the following in a news magazine I take.

In the 1970's the average woman took a size four shoe; today she is a six, reports the Guardian. The typical mn now has size ten feet, up from size eight. medical experts say the change is down to people getting heavier and taller.

Correct me if I'm wrong - but isn't this Lamarkism?

I think, yes, you are incorrect.
Because the increase in size isn't indicative of an acquired trait being passed on.
It is just more people are getting to what the genes already allowed but the average person in previous generations lacked the lifelong food supply to achieve. [some of that size is good...some of it, of course, not so much.]

[[we seem to have reached the preset potentials for height a generation or so ago...it increased every generation, IIRC, until the most recent which has the same average as the previous...in the U.S. anyway. Girthiness apparently has some room for expansion...or course they operate somewhat differently, biologically]].

[peter]

If I understand you V., you are saying the increase in foot size is just a 'proportionate' increase in line with an overall size increase due to better nutrition, health, etc. ie A 'nurture' rather than a 'nature' driven result with no actual genetic input beyond the limits of those same genes involved in foot size.

[In fairness it had crossed my mind that the Darwinian 'fitness struggle' model would have to be opperating at a very rapid level and in manners beyond my comprehension {re competative advantage} to be applied to foot size and to achieve so visible a reult so quickly. Mind you - poor old Lamarck got some bad press, but I don't think his idea was that crazy at the end of the day.]

[Vraith]

If I understand you V., you are saying the increase in foot size is just a 'proportionate' increase in line with an overall size increase due to better nutrition, health, etc. ie A 'nurture' rather than a 'nature' driven result with no actual genetic input beyond the limits of those same genes involved in foot size.

[In fairness it had crossed my mind that the Darwinian 'fitness struggle' model would have to be opperating at a very rapid level and in manners beyond my comprehension {re competative advantage} to be applied to foot size and to achieve so visible a reult so quickly. Mind you - poor old Lamarck got some bad press, but I don't think his idea was that crazy at the end of the day.]

Yea, it's just the "nurture."
Now, if having bigger feet gives some breeding advantage [and it might, you know what they say about men with with big hands and feet...*]

And Lamarck wasn't totally bonkers, considering the limits at the time...entire empires rose, lived, and fell based on sillier thoughts than his.














[*they have big shoes and gloves, you dirty old man.]

[Fist and Faith]

There's a science group on FB called Hudson Valley Science Forum. A couple guys post a lot of links to fascinating stuff. Stuff way beyond me, but at least fun to read. Just thought folks might be interested.

[Vraith]

Ok, first there was the thing a few months ago about the computer that created a mathematical proof to long for people to read/check.

Now there's computers making discoveries.

And remember...these are neither quantum nor AI. These are completely non-conscious and classical.

www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329844 ... ADemDJdW_Z

[Hashi Lebwohl]

These are discoveries that a human could have made, if that human didn't have to worry about eating, sleeping, forgetting anything, and being able to take as long as it took to sort through all the data. Just another example of maximum efficiency at work.

This is still a useful discover, though--now other research teams are going to feed decades' worth of published research into computer systems to have them sort through and look for previously-undiscovered findings amongst the words.

[Vraith]

These are discoveries that a human could have made, if that human didn't have to worry about eating, sleeping, forgetting anything, and being able to take as long as it took to sort through all the data. Just another example of maximum efficiency at work.

This is still a useful discover, though--now other research teams are going to feed decades' worth of published research into computer systems to have them sort through and look for previously-undiscovered findings amongst the words.

Humans COULD have...with all you say and a whole bunch of them, and massive amounts of time. I'm not disagreeing with you...it's just I think your summary downplays the enormity of that speed scale difference.

I'm thinking, if the method proves adaptable, they'll do exactly what you say. And they damn well should.

I mean 1/3rd of all deaths each year are due to one thing: cardiovascular disease. almost another 1/3rd to 3 more diseases. There are hundreds of thousands of reasonably well-done research studies on them. No person or group of people has read more than a small portion of them. It wouldn't even take a whole day for that computer to read all of them.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

The computer at my desk could sort through a decades' worth of research and look for new connections before I finish reading the first one. I concur--a new emerging field of research will be this sort of computer use. I am uncertain what to call it right now--some sort of data mining?

[peter]

How do such programs recognise patterns that are usefull [ie have intrinsic value as 'pieces' to slot into the vast edifice that is scientific knowledge] from those that are just intriguing or beautifull [that say the ratio of a's to e's to I's to o's to u's in Macbeth is that of the order of numbers in the 'golden ratio' {it isn't - I just made that up as an example }].

Use of computers in such a way could/will fundamentally alter the way the above edifice incrementally grows and we [as with the individual elements the computers elucidate] will not be able to see what way this alteration manifests itself. ie we won't see the wood for the trees.

[peter]

Sorry for the double post BUT on an unrelated topic, apparently the end of the world fixture has at last been set for.....wait for it, let me just dig it out, ....ah, here we are, 16th March 2880.

[Scenario; Massive asteroid 1km diameter, heading Earth [or v. close thereby], direct hit think 2,240,000 H-bombs, curtains down life. Near miss, not much fun either.]

Saving a third post, apparently e-bay uk was forced to close for a number of hours last week because the internet ran out of space.

[Vraith]

Use of computers in such a way could/will fundamentally alter the way the above edifice incrementally grows and we [as with the individual elements the computers elucidate] will not be able to see what way this alteration manifests itself. ie we won't see the wood for the trees.

Hmmm...if you mean what I think you do, one of us is reading the process wrong. I'm going to assume it's you, of course.
In this case, the research[ers] KNOW there is a wood. They simply cannot survey it all at once. The computer can sort through the whole thing.
They knew about pines, and that oaks and maple had a role in how pines and the wood work. The computer looked at all the forestry they were doing and said "yep, pines, oaks, maples...but y'all missed the streams, poplars, and squirrels." [cuz it's not just spotting "i's" and "u's," it's putting them in context]
Not blinding with trees, but filling in the map. The computer, through sheer speed [with good code...don't forget that...it's doing what people TELL it to do...good code is the key] is much less like a ground searcher and much more like aerial surveillance.