Science News

https://www.universetoday.com/154063/tongas-incredible-underwater-volcano-eruption-seen-from-space/ The Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha’apai volcano is located about 64 kilometers (40 miles) north of the capital of Tonga, Nuku’alofa. In late 2014 and early 2015, a series of eruptions in the area created a small new island. While this is a small volcanic island, below the ocean the volcano is huge: around 1.8 km high and 20km wide. And now, follow-up images of today’s eruption appear to show the small volcanic island was basically blown in two. The volcano has been rumbling and spewing small amounts of ash since late in December 2021, but today’s eruption was one of the lar…

Mormyrid fishes have the largest branes compared to body size of any vertebrate and it would seem the part that is the biggest is the part we use to think! I knew they had large brains but this video astonished even me. I have a mormyrid right now, I've had his for 6 months and he has some quite interesting behaviors. One of which is his interest in moving magnets and his voracious apatite. He uses his electric field to bully the other fish away from food and eats like a pig. This video, if anyone is interested, at least partially explains his eating habits and the composition of his brain.

" Physicists Observe Incredible 'Quantum Tornados' Formed From Ultra-Cold Atoms" https://www.sciencealert.com/ultracold-atoms-form-tiny-tornadoes-as-classic-physics-gives-way-to-quantum-behavior and https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04170-2 (Sorry about the formatting) Thought it might be interesting if anyone wanted to comment on what looks quite spectacular to this untrained eye

Scientists have discovered that a distant neutron star has released as much energy as our Sun produces in 100 thousand years in just 0.16 seconds, writes Scientific American.

https://phys.org/news/2022-01-black-hole-fuzzball-wormhole-debate.html Resolving the black hole 'fuzzball or wormhole' debate: The study attempts to put to rest the debate over Stephen Hawking's famous information paradox, the problem created by Hawking's conclusion that any data that enters a black hole can never leave. This conclusion accorded with the laws of thermodynamics, but opposed the fundamental laws of quantum mechanics. "What we found from string theory is that all the mass of a black hole is not getting sucked in to the center," said Samir Mathur, lead author of the study and professor of physics at The Ohio State University. "The black hole tr…

https://www.sciencealert.com/the-tiny-dots-in-this-image-aren-t-stars-or-galaxies-they-re-black-holes The Tiny Dots in This Image Aren't Stars or Galaxies. They're Black Holes MICHELLE STARR 2 JANUARY 2022 The image above may look like a fairly normal picture of the night sky, but what you're looking at is a lot more special than just glittering stars. Each of those white dots is an active supermassive black hole. And each of those black holes is devouring material at the heart of a galaxy millions of light-years away – that's how they could be pinpointed at all. more at link..... <<<<<<<<<<<<&lt…

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jan/02/fossil-hunter-richard-leakey-who-showed-humans-evolved-in-africa-dies-at-77?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook&fbclid=IwAR1PhZqET2nyh3CUhPbAvWs63MVs4l5o5mEP2j6bbH6iEqYIPvmCararT5w Sorry about the bad news. An excerpt of his book with Roger Lewin, Origins Reconsidered, is forever etched in my memory, where he paints a vivid picture of a young Homo erectus dying, and slowly, through more than a million years, becoming the fossil he and Alan Walker discovered at Lake Turkana, and forever after called the Turkana boy: This image of a wait-a-bit thorn springing from what once was a boy's head I find …

Sun Halo over Sweden https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap211228.html "Explanation: What's happened to the Sun? Sometimes it looks like the Sun is being viewed through a giant lens. In the featured video, however, there are actually millions of tiny lenses: ice crystals. Water may freeze in the atmosphere into small, flat, six-sided, ice crystals. As these crystals flutter to the ground, much time is spent with their faces flat and parallel to the ground. An observer may find themselves in the same plane as many of the falling ice crystals near sunrise or sunset. During this alignment, each crystal can act like a miniature lens, refracting sunlight into our view and cre…

Russian scientists have discovered a new mechanism for the formation of formaldehyde in space - a compound that plays a significant role in the synthesis of organic compounds necessary for the origin of life on Earth. According to the new results, organic molecules can appear in molecular clouds in the early stages of evolution, that is, much earlier than the formation of stars in them. Molecules of water carry out the transfer of protons from oxygen atoms to a carbon atom, which catalyzes the formaldehyde synthesis reaction without the need for a large amount of energy. Source: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jpclett.1c02760

Oh, the headline writers ... Scientists Find A Hole In Earth’s Centre, Through A Secret Duct Under Panama (indiatimes.com)

https://apnews.com/article/edward-o-wilson-dead-biologist-bc3d64fceb5200dd88d67187ef2a5cee

Astronomers have found 70 wandering planets after having processed 20-years collected data. Wadnering planets are the planets that are located in interstellar space and are not gravitationally associated with a star or brown dwarf. Over the past 20 years, about two dozen such bodies have been discovered. The source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-021-01513-x

https://www.the-sun.com/tech/4330598/china-fires-up-artificial-sun/ HOT TO TROT China fires up ‘artificial sun’ 7 times warmer than the real sun to make unlimited energy – and wants to make it HOTTER CHINA has fired up a machine designed to make unlimited energy known as the "artificial sun" - and wants to make it even hotter than the real sun. Tests being run on the Experiential Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) trying to get a higher temperature and longer duration at the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science research centre. The device is already close to seven times warmer than the sun, but scientists are trying to upgrade the EAST…

Artificial intelligence in one of the district people's prosecutor's offices in Shanghai for the first time became the compiler of the text of the indictment, which will be presented to the criminal in court. This is reported by Economic News with reference to haggin.az According to the South China Morning Post newspaper, AI received prosecutorial skills after studying more than 17 thousand cases considered in the courts of Shanghai from 2015 to 2020. The "digital prosecutor" makes accusations with 97% accuracy, based on one thousand "characteristic features" that he identifies in court documents on specific criminal cases. "Artificial intelligence to a cer…

https://www.theweathernetwork.com/ca/news/article/fossil-of-baby-dinosaur-preserved-in-egg-astounds-science-community

"Strange chemical in clouds of Venus defies explanation. Could it be a sign of life?" https://www.space.com/venus-clouds-possible-life-chemical-discovery.html

I came across this short but brilliant, 4.5 minute talk from the BBC about the subject of misinterpretations. Answers here to refer to most of the fallacies we see all too regularly at SF. How to avoid falling for the ‘gambler’s fallacy’ - BBC Ideas

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/astronomers-discover-hidden-water-in-the-red-planets-grand-canyon-180979267/ A Martian orbiter located a large reserve of hydrogen in a mountainous area of the Red Planet Elizabeth Gamillo Daily Correspondent December 20, 2021 3:28 p.m. A region within Mars's Valles Marineris (pictured) called the Candor Chaos had a large amount of hydrogen about a meter below the surface. European Space Agency extract: "Using TGO's data from May 2018 to February 2021, the team found a large amount of hydrogen beneath the surface of Mars' versi…

https://phys.org/news/2021-12-black-holes-immediately-big.html Did black holes form immediately after the Big Bang? How did supermassive black holes form? What is dark matter? In an alternative model for how the universe came to be, as compared to the 'textbook' history of the universe, a team of astronomers propose that both of these cosmic mysteries could be explained by so-called "primordial black holes." Nico Cappelluti (University of Miami), Günther Hasinger (ESA Science Director) and Priyamvada Natarajan (Yale University), suggest that black holes existed since the beginning of the universe and that these primordial black holes could themselves …

https://phys.org/news/2021-12-nasa-friday-webb-space-telescope.html NASA confirms next Friday for Webb Space Telescope launch: In this April 13, 2017 photo provided by NASA, technicians lift the mirror of the James Webb Space Telescope using a crane at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. NASA announced Tuesday, Dec. 14, 2021, that next week's launch of its new space telescope is delayed for at least two days because of a communication problem between the observatory and the rocket. Liftoff of the James Webb Space Telescope is now targeted for no earlier than Dec. 24. Credit: Laura Betz/NASA via AP, File NASA is shooting for next Friday t…

Interesting, any thoughts on how to apply this into use? https://scitechdaily.com/physicists-discover-a-remarkable-new-type-of-sound-wave

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/936908 I Hope there won't be any problems while its exploitation. What do you think of it?

On the December, 8 Yusaku Maezawa and Yozo Hirano have docked to the ISS module “Search". They were from Baikonur Cosmodrome where Yuri Gagarin’s first ever flight to space had taken place in 1961. Also it’s known that they are going to make a first ever made painting using brushes in space. On the ISS, they will have access to both the Russian and American segments of the ISS. The return of the crew is scheduled for December 20. https://spaceadventures.com/ms-20/ https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/dec/08/dream-come-true-japanese-billionaire-blasts-off-for-iss

Claimed to be the hottest place on Earth https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-59601560

For those of you who are interested in this. There’s been a flurry of papers on the subject over the past three years in particular, but it was very difficult to get the big picture. This is a nice, plain language summary. https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-most-famous-paradox-in-physics-nears-its-end-20201029/