The Science Thread!

[Vrede too]

Pendulum wave machine, 振り子波

1:10 is .

[Vrede too]

Researchers reverse ageing in human skin cells by 30 years

The wound healing implications are intriguing. However, I've gotten used to being old and don't think I'd use it for aesthetic purposes. Never say never, though. Otoh, if they could make me look like Brad Pitt 30 years ago . . .

[Vrede too]

The secret ingredient in Roman concrete that means buildings can last for millennia

... scientists now believe they have rediscovered a secret ingredient in the ancient recipe that makes the building material self-healing – quicklime.

Experts at MIT and Harvard have found that adding quicklime to the mix creates a super-hot chemical reaction that leaves calcium deposits peppered throughout the concrete.

Crucially, if cracks begin to appear at a later stage and water seeps through, it causes these calcium deposits to recrystallise into calcium carbonate, filling in the gaps. The reactions take place spontaneously, healing the cracks before they spread further and compromise the integrity of a structure.

It explains how the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome in the Pantheon, which was dedicated in 128AD, is still intact, while many modern concrete structures crumble after a few decades.

Some ancient concrete aqueducts still supply Rome with water, while large parts of Hadrian’s Wall, its core bolstered by ancient concrete, survive.

Cool.

... The new finding could enable modern engineers to build structures that can last millennia. It was made after experts started studying calcium deposits, known as lime clasts, in the ancient concrete. They had previously been disregarded as a product of sloppy mixing practices....

Opps.

[billy.pilgrim]

The secret ingredient in Roman concrete that means buildings can last for millennia

... scientists now believe they have rediscovered a secret ingredient in the ancient recipe that makes the building material self-healing – quicklime.

Experts at MIT and Harvard have found that adding quicklime to the mix creates a super-hot chemical reaction that leaves calcium deposits peppered throughout the concrete.

Crucially, if cracks begin to appear at a later stage and water seeps through, it causes these calcium deposits to recrystallise into calcium carbonate, filling in the gaps. The reactions take place spontaneously, healing the cracks before they spread further and compromise the integrity of a structure.

It explains how the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome in the Pantheon, which was dedicated in 128AD, is still intact, while many modern concrete structures crumble after a few decades.

Some ancient concrete aqueducts still supply Rome with water, while large parts of Hadrian’s Wall, its core bolstered by ancient concrete, survive.

Cool.

... The new finding could enable modern engineers to build structures that can last millennia. It was made after experts started studying calcium deposits, known as lime clasts, in the ancient concrete. They had previously been disregarded as a product of sloppy mixing practices....

Opps.

I'm still trying to figure out how and why this works for modern construction.
I get it and I would love to see us build forever structures, but we move on past today's buildings so quickly in order to feed the banks, developers, contractors and consumer trends that I can’t see us accepting the cost of permanence over the quick and easy.
One of the articles (maybe this one) I've read suggested use in 3-D printing. Maybe this would be the answer, or in factory made slabs for tilt-up, but hot concrete wouldn't even make it to the job site before setting up. Concrete companies even add ice to the water in the mix to extend the workable time in hot weather.

hint: don't ever use the water that's been sitting in the hose for cement, concrete, grout, etc. Let the water run cold first.

[Vrede too]

Why More Physicists Are Starting to Think Space and Time Are ‘Illusions’

... If your neighbor told you she had two cats, one live cat and a dead one, this would imply that either the first cat or the second one is dead and that the remaining cat, respectively, is alive—it would be a strange and morbid way of describing one’s pets, and you may not know which one of them is the lucky one, but you would get the neighbor’s drift. Not so in the quantum world. In quantum mechanics, the very same statement implies that the two cats are merged in a superposition of cases, including the first cat being alive and the second one dead and the first cat being dead while the second one lives, but also possibilities where both cats are half alive and half dead, or the first cat is one-third alive, while the second feline adds the missing two-thirds of life. In a quantum pair of cats, the fates and conditions of the individual animals get dissolved entirely in the state of the whole. Likewise, in a quantum universe, there are no individual objects. All that exists is merged into a single “One.”...

The only thing that I understand from the article is that physicists going back at least to Schrödinger hate cats.

too many ....shrooms..............

Well, that really clears things up.

wait why do i talk to myself so much

I've tried to explain that time is just an illusion to my boss everytime i am late for work, but he ain't buying it.

This explains how there is someone exactly like you living a totally parallel life. I found mine, but every time I try to call him the line is busy.

, clever.

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‘It was an accident’: the scientists who have turned humid air into renewable power
Tesla speculated electricity from thin air was possible – now the question is whether it will be possible to harness it on the scale needed to power our homes

... In May, a team at the University of Massachusetts (UMass) Amherst published a paper declaring they had successfully generated a small but continuous electric current from humidity in the air. It’s a claim that will probably raise a few eyebrows, and when the team made the discovery that inspired this new research in 2018, it did.

“To be frank, it was an accident,” says the study’s lead author, Prof Jun Yao. “We were actually interested in making a simple sensor for humidity in the air. But for whatever reason, the student who was working on that forgot to plug in the power.”

The UMass Amherst team were surprised to find that the device, which comprised an array of microscopic tubes, or nanowires, was producing an electrical signal regardless.

Science is funny.

... The team accept that it may take years to optimise a prototype and scale up production, but if they’re successful, the benefits are clear. Unlike solar or wind, hygroelectric generators could work day and night, indoors and out, and in many places. The team even hope one day to make construction materials from their devices. “Imagine you can construct parts of a building using this material,” Andriy says. “There’s no need to transfer the energy, no need for infrastructure.”

It may all seem like blue-sky thinking, and Tesla’s dreams of limitless electricity from the air are still a long way off, but Yao suggests we may find grounds for optimism among cloudier skies. “Lots of energy is stored in water molecules in the air,” he says. “That’s where we get the lightning effect during a thunderstorm. The existence of this type of energy isn’t in doubt. It’s about how we collect it.”

Cool!

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Half-million-year-old wooden structure unearthed in Zambia

Bravo, science!

I can't find anything about this in the bible. Weird.

So easy a caveman can do it

[Vrede too]

Much more recently:

Further evidence points to footprints in New Mexico being the oldest sign of humans in Americas

New research confirms that fossil human footprints in New Mexico are likely the oldest direct evidence of human presence in the Americas, a finding that upends what many archaeologists thought they knew about when our ancestors arrived in the New World.

The footprints were discovered at the edge of an ancient lakebed in White Sands National Park and date back to between 21,000 and 23,000 years ago, according to research published Thursday in the journal Science....

Add to that however many thousands (?) of years it took people to reach New Mexico from the coast and/or Alaska.

Ironic that this is the same area as the first atomic bomb test, Trinity. Could still be the start and end of continental civilization.

Not just humans, but humans with dance lessons :

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The Battle to Beat Malaria
Follow the quest to create a lifesaving malaria vaccine.
Premiered: 11/15/23, Runtime: 53:54, Topic: Body + Brain

Malaria is one of humanity’s oldest and most devastating plagues. In many parts of the world, it remains an ever-present scourge that sickens or kills millions of people each year. What if it could finally be defeated? Now, scientists may be on the verge of a breakthrough with a promising vaccine in the final stages of testing and approval. Follow researchers on a quest to deliver humankind from one of the world’s deadliest diseases. (Premiering November 15, 2023 at 9 pm on PBS)

I must have missed this in the mainstream news. They did it - a safe, effective and affordable vaccine!!!

It's estimated that malaria has killed more people throughout human history than all other causes combined. This will have huge implications not just for healthcare but also for child development and education, economics and social stability.

Trivia: Sickle cell disease is a horrible affliction suffered mostly by Blacks that is caused by getting the sickle cell trait from both parents. However, the trait from just one parent confers some immunity to malaria. Hence, it persists in the population.

[billy.pilgrim]

The Battle to Beat Malaria
Follow the quest to create a lifesaving malaria vaccine.
Premiered: 11/15/23, Runtime: 53:54, Topic: Body + Brain

Malaria is one of humanity’s oldest and most devastating plagues. In many parts of the world, it remains an ever-present scourge that sickens or kills millions of people each year. What if it could finally be defeated? Now, scientists may be on the verge of a breakthrough with a promising vaccine in the final stages of testing and approval. Follow researchers on a quest to deliver humankind from one of the world’s deadliest diseases. (Premiering November 15, 2023 at 9 pm on PBS)

I must have missed this in the mainstream news. They did it - a safe, effective and affordable vaccine!!!

It's estimated that malaria has killed more people throughout human history than all other causes combined. This will have huge implications not just for healthcare but also for child development and education, economics and social stability.

Trivia: Sickle cell disease is a horrible affliction suffered mostly by Blacks that is caused by getting the sickle cell trait from both parents. However, the trait from just one parent confers some immunity to malaria. Hence, it persists in the population.

The Navy built an eight, or maybe it was ten, foot wall around the Naval base at Pensacola to keep the malaria mosquito out.

Oh yeah, that worked.

[Vrede too]

The Navy built an eight, or maybe it was ten, foot wall around the Naval base at Pensacola to keep the malaria mosquito out.

Oh yeah, that worked.

Does that have a modern lesson for us?


I've heard this claim before:



Fact Check: Darwin Reportedly Converted to Christianity and Renounced Theory of Evolution on His Deathbed. Here Are the Facts



Claim:
Charles Darwin professed a belief in God and recanted the theory of evolution on his deathbed.

Rating:


Christians and other believers lie so much because their masses have already proven their ready gullibility.

[Vrede too]

Float like an Egyptian:

Dozens of Egyptian pyramids, some in Giza, sat along a branch of the Nile, study says


A map of the water course of the ancient Ahramat Branch.

... Some of the granite blocks used to construct them were sourced from locations hundreds of miles south of their sites. In some cases, the blocks could be “mammoth,” weighing several tons, said Peter Der Manuelian, a professor of Egyptology at Harvard University and the director of the Harvard Museum’s Museum of the Ancient East....

Cool. GoScienceGo

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Scientific American makes presidential endorsement for only the second time in its 179-year history

... “Vote for Kamala Harris to Support Science, Health and the Environment,” read the headline in Scientific American on Monday, announcing the publication’s official support for the Democratic presidential candidate.

Harris is Scientific American’s second presidential endorsement in its history, after the magazine backed President Joe Biden during the 2020 election.

“The US faces two futures,” the editors wrote, pushing one candidate who “offers the country better prospects, relying on science, solid evidence and the willingness to learn from experience.”

They continued: “In the other future, the new president endangers public health and safety and rejects evidence, preferring instead nonsensical conspiracy fantasies.”...

GoScienceGo!

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Scientific American makes presidential endorsement for only the second time in its 179-year history


GoScienceGo!

OhnoScienceOhno



One-Minute Time Machine - The Short Film that (probably) helped Rick & Morty win an Emmy

[GoCubsGo]

Scientific American makes presidential endorsement for only the second time in its 179-year history


GoScienceGo!

OhnoScienceOhno



One-Minute Time Machine - The Short Film that (probably) helped Rick & Morty win an Emmy

[O Really]

So yesterday we went hiking at 5,500 ft. Palomar State Park, also home of the Palomar Observatory. https://sites.astro.caltech.edu/palomar/about/

Totally cool trip - beautiful clear day, great views, 65ish even on the mountain. The observatory is open to the public to go in and see the telescope, and it's huge. At about 16ft across, it was the largest in the world when it was first put in use in 1949 after about 10 year in building, but newer ones now are about twice its size. Interesting trivia - the first person to use it was Edwin Hubble, yes that Hubble.