Memammal

Hi GeeKay, maybe I can help you with this. From what you are describing the movie content is defaulted to a high-res audio codec (with this move it is DTS HD Master Audio), while the other parts are not (they would be in standard PCM or DTS/Dolby). So your player or decoder (the Audio Video Receiver or the TV) cannot decode this codec. There are a couple of things that you can do: Set your Blu-ray player's audio output to PCM (aka LPCM) not bit stream. This *should* resolve the issue as it then outputs in a digital format that your AVR or TV can decode; But if your Blu-ray player cannot decode the original codec (which would be strange, as the player should automatically read the disc in a format that is compatible - all players & discs are backwards compatible), you need to change the movie's audio format in the disc set-up to PCM or DTS/Dolby Digital. In order to do so, you could try the movie's own menu (each movie at its start should give you the option to change the audio format according to choice), or by pressing the audio set-up button on your Blu-ray player's remote and then toggle through it until you get the desired codec that works. I trust that this would resolve the issue. If not, there is likely something wrong with the way that the discs were encoded/written.

Thanks again Mike. The first page that you published is readable (together with the intro that I found), but the second one not. Don't worry too much as I think I got the gist of it. Also, the New Scientist Facebook page has a very good diagram/image relating to this article (plus the same intro) where they summarised their findings.

Thanks Mike. I would love to read the rest of this.

The next bit of news seems to fit nicely with the above:

Source: Cosmos 23 October 2017. It seems like a pretty sensational claim...and title for the article..?

This is a pretty cool NY Times article and video re this event.

^ Thank you for such a detailed response!

Just a quick comment/question. It was initially predicted that Asteroid 2012 TC4, which is estimated to be 30m in size, will pass Earth at a distance of approx. 6,800kms (which is mighty close). They have since, only in July, recalculated and adjusted that estimate (based on more recent observations) to approx. 50,000kms. This asteroid will pass Earth this Thursday, merely 3 months after its orbit has been more accurately assessed. So, in theory, it could have been the other way around, no? If it was miscalculated the first time and we only find out that this asteroid was actually on route to impact Earth, what can be done in 3 months..? Not much, I assume. This is "only" a 30m asteroid, but even so it could have been extremely dangerous and might have caused major damage if it was heading towards a highly populated city.

I stand corrected, but afaik the RNA world hypothesis has been more theory and less evidential. This study claims to have demonstrated how small non-living molecules may have given rise to larger molecules that were capable of reproducing themselves, which according to them would have been a key event for life to take hold...in short: life from non-life (which probably would have been a more attention-grabbing title). Furthermore, apparently the size matters....the smallest molecule that exhibited self-ligation activity was a 40-nucleotide RNA. This very basic form of RNA also demonstrated the greatest functional flexibility as it was more general in the kinds of substrates it ligated to itself (although its catalytic efficiency was the lowest). Area54, if you learned anything more about it from studying the published article, please let us know.

As reported on the Wits University website: Complex life evolved out of the chance coupling of small molecules “Life was a chance event, there is no doubt about that,” says Dr Pierre Durand from the Evolution of Complexity Laboratory in the Evolutionary Studies Institute at Wits University, who led a project to find out how exactly these molecules linked up with each other. Their results are published today in the journal Royal Society OS, in a paper entitled "Molecular trade-offs in RNA ligases affected the modular emergence of complex ribozymes at the origin of life”. Very simple ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules (compounds similar to Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)) can join other RNA molecules to themselves though a chemical reaction called ligation. The random joining together of different pieces or RNA could give rise to a group of molecules able to produce copies of themselves and so kick start the process of life.

Hi studiot, Thank you for the kind compliment. This article published by nature.com gives a more detailed overview of the findings, how it fits other evidence and the implications thereof: Oldest Homo sapiens fossil claim rewrites our species' history. Note that these were not new findings per se, but rather a more detailed gathering and processing of existing and additional evidence including more accurate dating of some of the remains. I do agree with you that the claim about a continental wide early dispersion of Homo sapiens based on similar types of stone tools found elsewhere, seems a bit premature. That being said, I know that scientists have struggled to merge findings in South Africa with a later migration pattern. The above article hints at one such piece of evidence. Unfortunately they were unable to extract DNA, which implies that they cannot for certain ascertain if- and how these remains tie in with modern humans.

June 1, 2017: The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory has made a third detection of gravitational waves, ripples in space and time, demonstrating that a new window in astronomy has been firmly opened. As was the case with the first two detections, the waves were generated when two black holes collided to form a larger black hole. Source