The Science Thread

[Redglyph]

A lot of stars have gone dark baffling researchers in a new study.

Hundreds Of Stars Have Vanished Without A Trace. Where Did They Go?

Explanations range from failed supernova to (much more unlikely) Dyson Spheres.

www.iflscience.com

Not surprising really as one day trillions of years from now the universe will go dark.

Pft. It's the Empire messing with their new toys again.

 

[pibbuR]

UHZ1: NASA Telescopes Discover Record-Breaking Black Hole
https://chandra.si.edu/photo/2023/uhz1/

pibbuR who llke everyone else wonders how the things got that big in so short a time.

 

[Couchpotato]

Ion Engine Most Powerful Ever, Historic Test Passed

NASA has created an ion engine three times as powerful as what's currently used and it's a game changer for space travel.

www.giantfreakinrobot.com

The most powerful ion engine currently in production has passed qualification testing. As reported by Universe Today, aerospace company Aerojet Rocketdyne, in a joint effort with NASA, has completed the successful qualification test of the Advanced Electric Propulsion System (AEPS).

The new solar electric propulsion (SEP) engine is a 12-kilowatt ion propulsion thruster that has been designed for long-term missions into space, including to and beyond the Moon. NASA announced the beginning of qualification testing this past July and is calling the new system “next-generation technology.”

 

[Couchpotato]

Rocks From Mars Are Hitting Earth, And Something Is Odd About Their Age

Humans are yet to set foot on Mars, but over time, Mars has come to the humans.

www.sciencealert.com

Humans are yet to set foot on Mars, but over time, Mars has come to the humans. Chunks of Martian rock ejected from their homeworld by processes such as violent impacts have wended their way through the Solar System to end up – smack! – crashing into Earth.

As we collect these samples of our neighboring planet, a curious pattern has emerged. Most of the samples seem to be rocks that formed on the red planet fairly recently; a peculiarity, given most of the Martian surface is so old.

It is possible the measures of age are largely wrong. Different dating techniques have returned different results, which means scientists aren't fully confident in estimates of when these rocks formed on Mars.

 

[JDR13]

Who knew David Attenborough had an echidna named after him? It was thought to be extinct, but apparently it's not.

Attenborough’s Long-Beaked Echidna Rediscovered After 60 Year-Absence to Science | Sci.News

Named after Sir David Attenborough, the Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna (Zaglossus attenboroughi) was captured for the first time in photos and video footage in the Cyclops Mountains in Indonesian New Guinea.

www.sci.news

 

[JDR13]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2023/11/13/mindflayer-virus-discovered-maryland/

In a recent study in the Journal of the International Society for Microbial Ecology, deCarvalho and colleagues explain how the viral odd couple probably came to be. The small virus, called MiniFlayer, lost the ability to make copies of itself inside cells, which is how viruses reproduce. So evolution devised a clever, parasitic workaround. MiniFlayer takes advantage of another virus, dubbed MindFlayer, by grabbing onto its neck, and when they enter cells together, MiniFlayer utilizes its companion’s genetic machinery to proliferate.

Spoiler

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Creepy.


I have found a nother creepy thing :
Microplastic can induce Parkinson ?

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adi8716

 

[Couchpotato]

SpaceX says its Starship blew itself up

It is not clear what caused rocket to decide to trigger its own destruction

www.independent.co.uk

SpaceX’s Starship blew itself up in the air, Elon Musk’s private space company has said.

Starship underwent its second flight test over the weekend, when the company attempted to send the rocket almost into orbit and then have it land in the ocean. It completed the first part of that mission – but disappeared around eight minutes into its flight.

Now the company has confirmed that it lost data from the flight at that moment, which came near the end of the burn of the second stage of the rocket.

At that point, the spacecraft used a “safe command destruct” that meant that it caused itself to explode in the air, the company said. It did not say why that had been issued, but did indicate that it had been “appropriately triggered based on available vehicle performance data”.

SpaceX noted that until that moment the flight appeared to have been going as planned. The Super Heavy Booster on the bottom of the spacecraft completed a full burn for the first time, for instance, and the two pieces of Starship separated successfully.

 

[Redglyph]

I know why. It was piloted by the Grok AI.

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

The biggest Math-Mistakes (Article is in German language) :https://www.spektrum.de/kolumne/ber...-marssonde-mammutbaeumen-und-kolumbus/2202553

 

[pibbuR]

I know why. It was piloted by the Grok AI.

FYI: My avatar is the Grok (Hufsa in Norwegian), together with a bunch of Hattifnatteners.

pibbuR who currently has two Grok cups, and still would like more.

No, it's not a picture of mr Musk.

 

[Redglyph]

FYI: My avatar is the Grok (Hufsa in Norwegian), amongst a bunch of Hattifnatteners.

So that's what it is; I've always wondered.

But it's the Groke, apparently. I just searched, and found out that grok was in the Oxford Dictionary of English:

grok grɒk verb. US slang. Infl. -kk-. M20.​

• 1 verb trans. Understand intuitively or by empathy; establish rapport with. M20.
  R. A. Heinlein Smith had been aware of the doctors but had grokked that their intentions were benign.
• 2 verb intrans. Empathize or communicate sympathetically (with). Also, experience enjoyment. M20.
  New Yorker We ought to get together somewhere…and grok about our problems.

ORIGIN: Invented by Robert Heinlein (1907–88), US author.

Coined by Robert A. Heinlein in his Stranger in a Strange Land, according to the Dictionary of American Heritage.

I grok it must be why they chose that name.

 

[pibbuR]

You're right. My bad. Still want more Grok(e) cups.

pibbuR

PS.
It's as most of you should know is a Moomin character. Her original, Finnish, name is "Mörkö". "Mårran" in Swedish (and as mentioned "Hufsa" in Norwegian). What is she called in other languages?
DS

PPS. For some years in Norway you've been able to choose personal number plates for your car. The other day I saw a car with the code "HUFSA". I liked that. I would like to baptize our car as "PIBBUR", but I've yet to convince the wife.

Lots of Norwegians of course wanted "FUCK" and "COCK" and A55HOLE and 748 other similar phrases. For some reason they were denied.
DS.

 

[Redglyph]

It's as most of you should know is a Moomin character. Her original, Finnish, name is "Mörkö". "Mårran" in Swedish (and as mentioned "Hufsa" in Norwegian). What is she called in other languages?

I've never heard about that in French, but there's some resemblance to the Barbapapa - only the general look, I don't think either was influenced by the other.

The things we must endure as a child...

 

[pibbuR]

Matt Parker has a book and a video about math errors:

My favorite is this one:

I admit it's not as scary as the Gimli glider. OTOH if you find them in the motor of an aircraft things could get nasty (assuming it was able to lift off).

I leave the "Why is it wrong" as an exercise to the reader.

 

[pibbuR]

I've never heard about that in French, but there's some resemblance to the Barbapapa - only the general look, I don't think either was influenced by the other.

The things we must endure as a child...

The groke is definitely not pink. And her smile ...

 

[Redglyph]

Matt Parker has a book and a video about math errors

That looks like a great book to relax!

I was baffled by the self-writing formula. It's slightly disturbing that someone has spent who knows how much time to find that, too (or even had the idea in the first place). But it's very impressive.

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

The groke is definitely not pink. And her smile ...

The pink one is the Barbapapa. Not female.
I know this from my childhood TV ...

 

[Redglyph]

Lol. Apparently, the Humble Pi book had 314 pages and they're counting down. I need that book.

 

[pibbuR]

A quote from the article linked by the owner of dte's in the Beating Tetris thread;
"If you set your mind to something and you put work into it, most likely you will get it if you try hard enough."

Another one setting his mind to and putting a lot of work into something is the British mathematician Andrew Wiles who spent 7 years proving Fermat's last theorem. Here's a video of him presenting a lecture (30 minutes) of elliptic curves (which was part of the proof) followed by 30 minutes discussion with Hannah Fry about his work and a QA session in the end.

The lecture requires understanding of Mathematics, and it progresses quite fast, so at least I have to watch it again, this time working through the examples on paper (and Maple) to get it all.

pibbuR

PS. One amusing piece of info: When watching a math lecture about things outside their special field, both of them often end up understanding very little of it (initially). DS.