The Science Thread

[pibbuR]

As far as I understand it the breakthrough is that they finally got more (admittedly not much more) energy out of it than they needed to get the reaction going - as long as it lasted. There is of course years/decades of work left before it can be of practical use, but it's a start.

pibbuR

 

[JDR13]

Another Orca attack and another ship sunk.

Orcas have attacked and sunk another boat in Europe — and experts warn there could be more attacks soon

A group of orcas known to attack boats in southwest Europe have sunk a 50-foot sailing yacht in the Strait of Gibraltar after ripping open its hull. It is the fifth time these killer whales have sent a ship to the seafloor in the last three years.

www.livescience.com

Imagine being out in the ocean with just one other person and your boat gets rammed by killer whales and starts sinking. The first thing I'm doing is changing into my brown pants.

 

[Redglyph]

Another Orca attack and another ship sunk.

Orcas have attacked and sunk another boat in Europe — and experts warn there could be more attacks soon

A group of orcas known to attack boats in southwest Europe have sunk a 50-foot sailing yacht in the Strait of Gibraltar after ripping open its hull. It is the fifth time these killer whales have sent a ship to the seafloor in the last three years.

www.livescience.com

Imagine being out in the ocean with just one other person and your boat gets rammed by killer whales and starts sinking. The first thing I'm doing is changing into my brown pants.

I wonder if we'll ever find a way to solve this except by killing all the orcas, which we may not be able to achieve - and would really be a shame. They live as long as us, so what I'm wondering now is whether they'll transmit all that knowledge down to the next generation.

 

[pibbuR]

Another Orca attack and another ship sunk.

Orcas have attacked and sunk another boat in Europe — and experts warn there could be more attacks soon

A group of orcas known to attack boats in southwest Europe have sunk a 50-foot sailing yacht in the Strait of Gibraltar after ripping open its hull. It is the fifth time these killer whales have sent a ship to the seafloor in the last three years.

www.livescience.com

Imagine being out in the ocean with just one other person and your boat gets rammed by killer whales and starts sinking. The first thing I'm doing is changing into my brown pants.

And take a selfie.

 

[JDR13]

I wonder if we'll ever find a way to solve this except by killing all the orcas, which we may not be able to achieve - and would really be a shame. They live as long as us, so what I'm wondering now is whether they'll transmit all that knowledge down to the next generation.

At least this phenomenon seems to be more or less confined to the Strait of Gibraltar and the surrounding area. Now if it starts to spread, then we know it's an Orca plot to usurp us.

 

[bkrueger]

At least this phenomenon seems to be more or less confined to the Strait of Gibraltar and the surrounding area. Now if it starts to spread, then we know it's an Orca plot to usurp us.

You mean they are like the squirrels in Rick & Morty?

 

[pibbuR]

pibbuR who who considers himself a complexly behaved complex of complex particles

 

[pibbuR]

At least this phenomenon seems to be more or less confined to the Strait of Gibraltar and the surrounding area. Now if it starts to spread, then we know it's an Orca plot to usurp us.

Yes. And lets not forget that sometimes they go ashore hunting seals. Who knows when they'll start going further inland?

pibbuR who, living 30 meters above sea level (and never having seen an orca in the nearby fjord), considers himself safe. For the moment.

 

[Redglyph]

Yes. And lets not forget that sometimes they go ashore hunting seals. Who knows when they'll start going further inland?

pibbuR who, living 30 meters above sea level (and never having seen an orca in the nearby fjord), considers himself safe. For the moment.

As long as you can run faster than the slowest seal, you should be OK. Provided you have a seal near you - maybe you should buy one, for safety? A slow one if possible.

Although... I looked it up, and it appears some of them can run pretty fast (they're called 'Navy Seals'; dunno if that's important).

PS: Joke apart, according to this page, they can run on land at 15 mph, which seems fast for such a cumbersome body. It's probably for a very short time.

 

[Lakorus]

As long as you can run faster than the slowest seal, you should be OK. Provided you have a seal near you - maybe you should buy one, for safety? A slow one if possible.

Although... I looked it up, and it appears some of them can run pretty fast (they're called 'Navy Seals'; dunno if that's important).

PS: Joke apart, according to this page, they can run on land at 15 mph, which seems fast for such a cumbersome body. It's probably for a very short time.

On the other hand, Orcas are pretty intelligent and maybe they're doing all of this on purpose (or for the fun of hunting clumsy humans, who knows). PibbuR's emphasis on "For the moment" may be accurate.

 

[Couchpotato]

Two articles I read today.

Alien 'Dyson sphere' megastructures could surround at least 7 stars in our galaxy, new studies suggest

Researchers have identified at least seven stars in our galaxy that may be surrounded by super-advanced alien megastructures, known as Dyson spheres. However, this is not the only explanation for these stars.

www.livescience.com

A New Study Suggests Aliens Aren’t Little Green Men. They’re Purple People Eaters.

We might have had it wrong this whole time.

www.popularmechanics.com

 

[HellRazor]

At least this phenomenon seems to be more or less confined to the Strait of Gibraltar and the surrounding area. Now if it starts to spread, then we know it's an Orca plot to usurp us.

They probably have identified mankind as an enemy. And they aren't wrong!

 

[pibbuR]

We had an eclipse earlier this year (US)

And a 17-year and 13-year brood of cicadas is coming up overf there. Last time those two did was in the middle of the 19. century.

And later this year (everywhere on the north hemisphere):

Nova explosion visible to the naked eye expected any day now

Sometime between May and September, a white dwarf is expected to go thermonuclear.

arstechnica.com

Last time, in 1946, it hit magnitude 3, and prior to that, in 1866, it was magnitude 2. Magnitude 2 is about as bright as the Northern Star,

pibbuR who most of all is waiting for this: "When the Betelgeuse supergiant in the Orion constellation explodes, you’ll know it because it will be as bright as the full moon and it will be very hard to ignore. I can say with confidence that it will explode sometime between now and 100,000 years from now."

 

[JDR13]

The most recent Blue Origin rocket had a 90 year-old among its crew members.

First Black astronaut candidate, now 90, reaches space in Blue Origin flight

Ex-air force captain Ed Dwight, passed over by Nasa in 1961, now oldest person to reach edge of space with Jeff Bezo’s space firm

www.theguardian.com

That's pretty impressive. I'm glad he finally got to go up there.

 

[pibbuR]

The most recent Blue Origin rocket had a 90 year-old among its crew members.

First Black astronaut candidate, now 90, reaches space in Blue Origin flight

Ex-air force captain Ed Dwight, passed over by Nasa in 1961, now oldest person to reach edge of space with Jeff Bezo’s space firm

www.theguardian.com

That's pretty impressive. I'm glad he finally got to go up there.

In other words there's still hope for my journey to Mars.

Jokes aside, in deed impressive and good for him.

 

[pibbuR]

AI headphones let wearer listen to a single person in a crowd by looking at them just once

Noise-canceling headphones have gotten very good at creating an auditory blank slate. But allowing certain sounds from a wearer's environment through the erasure still challenges researchers. The latest edition of Apple's AirPods Pro, for instance, automatically adjusts sound levels for...

techxplore.com

"To use the system, a person wearing off-the-shelf headphones fitted with microphones taps a button while directing their head at someone talking. The sound waves from that speaker's voice then should reach the microphones on both sides of the headset simultaneously;"

There are a few not surprising limitations:
"Currently the TSH system can enroll only one speaker at a time, and it's only able to enroll a speaker when there is not another loud voice coming from the same direction"

pibbuR who observes that this could be useful when it works but is unsure if it (ever) works (sufficiently well)

 

[Redglyph]

From the explanation, I suppose that if you have a database with samples from everyone, you could also select who to listen from a name in that database.

That's quite impressive.

 

[pibbuR]

Time for some real neural networks:

World's first bioprocessor uses 16 human brain organoids for ‘a million times less power’ consumption than a digital chip

Swiss startup claims its Neuroplatform is a first for biocomputing.

www.tomshardware.com

For the record: A brain organoid is not a piece of a human brain, but artificially grown neural tissue (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_organoid).

pibbuR whose brain organ(oid) requires 12 W.

PS. Watson required 90 000 W during the Jeopardy sessions according to Scientific American. Seems a bit small to me, but I haven't found data elsewhere. DS.

 

[pibbuR]

Europe’s space agency prepares to blot out the Sun

The Proba-3 mission will study the Sun with self-made eclipses.

www.theverge.com

pibbuR who thinks this is good news, if he could get one permanently above his location. And providing constant rain.

 

[Redglyph]

pibbuR who thinks this is good news, if he could get one permanently above his location. And providing constant rain.

Alternatively, you could come to Belgium. It's about 8 months of rain with floods, gales, storms, and sometimes even small hurricanes, against only 4 months of heat waves and droughts (with the occasional storm and hamrful hail).

PS: We have beer and chocolate, but don't forget to bring pants with large pockets for your smartphone.