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Showing content with the highest reputation on 02/04/22 in all areas
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Image source, Historic England Image caption, The Sweet Track in Shapwick Heath National Nature Reserve is protected as a scheduled monument A 6,000-year-old wooden walkway over wetlands is no longer under threat thanks to conservation work. The Sweet Track, in the Shapwick Heath National Nature Reserve in Somerset, is set to be removed from Historic England's Heritage at Risk Register. The prehistoric track was built by the first farming communities in 3,806 BC and is the UK's oldest wooden walkway. BBC news article. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-60203225 What tickles me is the date it was allegedly built. 3806 BC. Not one year earlier or one year later ! Happy reading.2 points
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I'm wondering what on earth more any of us can do more to convince @Doogles31731 that there is not, as he imagines, some crucial gap in the basic data in science, just because nobody has revisited Tyndall's 1859 experiment. I suppose one thing is to provide a picture of an IR gas cell, to show him that in fact what a modern IR spectrometer does is exactly what Tyndall did, with the crucial addition of a means of analysing the absorption as a function of wavelength. So below is a picture of a gas cell. It is in effect Tyndall's tube, with windows at the ends transparent to IR. (To this day, many of these windows are made of rock salt, NaCl, though other minerals can also be used.: Another thing we could do is show how mixtures of gases are routinely analysed by IR, every day. Here is a link to a manufacturer of IR gas mixture analysers: https://www.servomex.com/gas-analyzers/technologies/infrared/ Apart from that, I confess I am rather stumped.2 points
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https://phys.org/news/2022-02-earth.html Earth's water was around before Earth: To understand how life emerged, scientists investigate the chemistry of carbon and water. In the case of water, they track the various forms, or isotopes, of its constituent hydrogen and oxygen atoms over the history of the universe, like a giant treasure hunt. Researchers from the CNRS, Paris-Saclay University, the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), and the University of Pau and the Pays de l'Adour (UPPA), with support from the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle (MNHN), have followed the trail of the isotopic composition of water back to the start of the solar system, in the inner regions where Earth and the other terrestrial planets were formed. more at link................... the paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-021-01595-7 Determination of the initial hydrogen isotopic composition of the solar system: Abstract: The initial isotopic composition of water in the Solar System is of paramount importance to understanding the origin of water on planetary bodies but remains unknown, despite numerous studies1,2,3,4,5. Here we use the isotopic composition of hydrogen in calcium–aluminium-rich inclusions (CAIs) from primitive meteorites, the oldest Solar System rocks, to establish the hydrogen isotopic composition of water at the onset of Solar System formation. We report the hydrogen isotopic composition of nominally anhydrous minerals from CAI fragments trapped in a once-melted host CAI. Primary minerals have extremely low D/H ratios, with δD values down to −850‰, recording the trapping of nebular hydrogen. Minerals rich in oxidised iron formed before the capture of the fragments record the existence of a nebular gas reservoir with an oxygen fugacity substantially above the solar value and a D/H ratio within 20% of that of the Earth’s oceans. Hydrogen isotopes also correlate with oxygen and nitrogen isotopes, indicating that planetary reservoirs of volatile elements formed within the first 2 × 105 years of the Solar System, during the main CAI formation epoch. We propose that the isotopic composition of inner Solar System water was established during the collapse of the protosolar cloud core owing to a massive admixture of interstellar water.1 point
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Thanks, I was tiring a bit, to be honest. But as so often, I find these discussions with eccentric people can lead to rewarding spin-offs. I was unaware of Tyndall's work in the c.19th until now, nor did I know when it was that IR spectroscopy was first developed, nor that it was our old chemical kinetics friend Arrhenius who first suggested atmospheric CO2 could have a profound effect on the climate. So I've come out of all this ahead, which makes the digging worthwhile. (It also reminds me of my time as a trainee patent agent, searching for prior art in the Patent Office Library to knock out a rival patent application. We had to do it by hand with indexes and paper documents in those days. And you never quite knew until the end what piece of information would be decisive.) Above all, I'm delighted that @Doogles31731 is now satisfied that science has indeed replicated Tyndall's work, by way of the design and use of the modern IR spectrometer, fitted with a gas cell. If you search the web for "IR analysis of gas mixtures", you will find a raft of references, many to commercial analysis applications, others to research papers, patent applications etc. I'm not going to dig through all these for you. Suffice it to say that this has been a standard analytical technique for gases for half a century. So it's time for you to move on to your next objection to the science of climate change, I guess. I've no doubt that, guided by "Watts Up With That* " and other disinformation sites, you can keep this game going almost indefinitely. Maybe I'll play, maybe I won't. It's now the weekend, after all. * Here's a link to a bias check on that site by the way: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/watts-up-with-that/1 point
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A menage a trois. Marriage of three. I'm reporting.1 point
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Plus one. The caution is not to have demographics distract from a candidate's possible deficiencies. E.g. Uber conservative, Ayn Rand loving, Clarence Thomas would be the poster child of ideologically induced blindness. And nonparticipation (he is well known for going more than a decade without asking a single question during oral arguments). Offered as a successor to Thurgood Marshall, the contrast could not be more glaring. And the activities of his wife, leading attempted disloyalty purges of anyone questioning Trump, as well as other far right smear campaigns, would seem to cast a shadow on his attempts to project impartiality.1 point
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I think judicial philosophy is also critical. For example strict constructionist vs originalism vs judicial activism. In addition, I think 'depth in a particular area' goes beyond legal depth, and should include human experiences. Poverty, racism, mental health, child abuse, sexism, disabilities, etc.; they all bring a perspective that helps bring a well-rounded and thoughtful insight to justice. For example, if you've only seen America from a white perspective it is difficult to recognize the racism that is built into our laws.1 point
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EM radiation is massless. One must conclude the associated fields are massless. But the radiation has momentum.1 point
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You’r overlooking the physics involved. Specifically, the Stefan-Boltzmann Law Nobody claimed the science is flawless. One of the flaws of the graph you provided is that does not include the error bars on the results. If you want to know how they came up with that result you need to read their paper, not some shoddy critique, and also not focus on one individual result. It’s cherry-picking.1 point
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I think it is not particularly helpful to think about the situation in this way, because if you look at the Lagrangian that describes the electromagnetic field, you will find that it does not contain any mass terms - neither in classical field theory nor in QED. Saying that “the field has mass” is thus misleading at best.1 point
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Two wind turbines are talking to each other, and the first asks, "What kind of music are you into?" The second replies, "I'm a huge heavy metal fan!"1 point
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Pedantry I think. They won't find work in the climate field because of incompetence, not because they question; they need to show where and how current understandings and conclusions are wrong and they can't. They need to show their "superior" understanding is correct and they can't.1 point
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From APOD and I believe worth an entry in this thread. Reminds me somewhat of the Hubble deep field. The Fornax Cluster of Galaxies Image Credit & Copyright: Marco Lorenzi, Angus Lau, Tommy Tse Explanation: Named for the southern constellation toward which most of its galaxies can be found, the Fornax Cluster is one of the closest clusters of galaxies. About 62 million light-years away, it is almost 20 times more distant than our neighboring Andromeda Galaxy, and only about 10 percent farther than the better known and more populated Virgo Galaxy Cluster. Seen across this two degree wide field-of-view, almost every yellowish splotch on the image is an elliptical galaxy in the Fornax cluster. Elliptical galaxies NGC 1399 and NGC 1404 are the dominant, bright cluster members toward the upper left (but not the spiky foreground stars). A standout barred spiral galaxy NGC 1365 is visible on the lower right as a prominent Fornax cluster member.1 point
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Looking for the best is an illusion for basically all even slightly complex jobs. One can define a set of suitable candidates, but ultimately figuring out the "best" within that pool is based more on gut guess than anything else. The real issue here is that traditionally we have the ominous "fit" as an important criterion. I.e. does a given person fit the role and the corporate culture. This has typically resulted in rather monolithic entities as someone who might have the same qualifications but somehow sticks out might result in a poor fit. Even perhaps 20 years back, a woman was seen as a poor fit for an academic career (in Germany). It was considered demanding and competitive and it was assumed that having a child would kill productivity. As a result we had and still have a 3:1 ratio of professors (M/W). In the US and Canada there was at least a discussion about that and the idea to boost gender equality has resulted in more parity. As a result, when I talk to students on either side of the pond, I see a big differences in how they see their ability and likelihood to pursue academic career. Moreover, increasing female faculty has not reduced overall productivity. And at least from anecdotes I have seen Germany lose quite a few talented female researchers due to the system who went on to have stellar careers overseas (I worked with some of them). In other words, the desire to find the "best" is often just a gatekeeping systems that selects not for the best in terms of abilities, but more in terms of conformity.1 point
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Nobody said this was "the best course of action", so stop complaining. I pointed out how you and others seem to hold only one side accountable for taking the high road when it comes to dirty tricks even while admitting that it's the other side that regularly pulls them. What a liberal thing to say! I hope you can remember this when the US GOP slides back in the mud. Personally, I wonder why they haven't floated the idea of putting a businessman on the SCOTUS, since lawyers don't always understand the bottom line. It worked so well for them with two presidents who had little political experience, and justices don't have to have a law degree the way a judge does.1 point
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Um, Genius...have you heard of ovaries? Know what's inside?-1 points