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Subject: Big, big, BIG (science) news


Date: Fri Dec 9 02:42:30 2016
User: TNmountainman
Message:
This is way cool. I think I'd call it big science news. Looks like lots of pictures in books, etc. will have to be re-drawn....

Link: real dinosaur tail preserved in amber

Date: Fri Dec 9 17:18:38 2016
User: hotnurse
Message:
Wow.

Date: Fri Dec 9 23:32:16 2016
User: Lindyhopper_Agame
Message:
Thanks! That is really cool.

Date: Sat Dec 10 07:55:25 2016
User: The_Inquisitor
Message:
How do we know this isn't fake news? If they could fake the moon landings. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Date: Sat Dec 10 22:44:20 2016
User: Punster
Message:
Left over from Jurassic Park ?

Date: Sun Dec 11 08:14:11 2016
User: The_Inquisitor
Message:
They landed the astronauts in Jurassic Park?

Date: Sun Dec 11 10:44:07 2016
User: ix
Message:
i wish they explained how they determined it was 99 million years old, that's a pretty specific age. still, uber awesome.

Date: Sun Dec 11 11:04:23 2016
User: BuzzClik
Message:
The age is based the array of insects found in the amber, as described in another publication (Grimaldi et al, 2002. American Museum Novitates. pages 1-71. http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1206/0003-0082%282002%29361%3C0001%3AFCAFMB%3E2.0.CO%3B2).

Date: Sun Dec 11 12:02:28 2016
User: Snowguy
Message:
Quite a find, and pretty much by luck as well as education and experience.

Date: Mon Dec 12 16:49:10 2016
User: TNmountainman
Message:
Speaking of old...........tho not *nearly* as old as the dinosaur tail..... And this probably doesn't qualify as BIG science news, but it actually is kinda cool, but sad. And despite what the title says, we all know it's not true. I guess it depends on how one defines "creature".

Link: Scientists killed oldest creature

Date: Mon Dec 12 18:00:47 2016
User: TitanicTony
Message:
Very impressive! Definitely "big science news", imo! “The fact alone that we got our hands on an animal that’s 507 years old is incredibly fascinating, but the really exciting thing is of course everything we can learn from studying the mollusc.”

Date: Mon Dec 12 19:17:17 2016
User: hotnurse
Message:
I bet that would make chewy chowder! Nice story.

Date: Mon Dec 12 19:49:02 2016
User: TNmountainman
Message:
Not quite what you had in mind, hotnurse, but once upon a time (2007), ix got all riled up about the potential loss of a clam (of which a quahog is one): --------- ix: "I think that was an insensitive post. If a clam had lost a parent to an otter and decided to play some freecell to get those awful images out of its clam mind and then checked out this discussion board and seen that video there would have been devastating consequences. I can't think of anything more horrifying than seeing your mom or dad smashed to bits by a rock wielding otter. Really hyster you should think before you post." ---------- Take home message?: Scientists can be as cruel as otters.

Date: Mon Jul 17 03:06:42 2017
User: TNmountainman
Message:
Ok, it's WAY too early to tell if this is going to be BIG science news, but it *is* extraordinary, and the possibilities only hinted at in this article are beyond tantalizing. Key quotes *may* turn out to be: "Eventually, the team wants to use the technique to create "molecular recorders". Dr Shipman says these are cells that can "encode information about what's going on in the cell and what's going on in the cell environment by writing that information into their own genome". "The timing component is important because it would be useful to track changes in a cell and its environment over time." This CRISPR stuff is just getting more and more amazing.

Link: DNA pics and movies

Date: Sun Oct 1 14:32:08 2017
User: TNmountainman
Message:
Did the Earth move for any of you all on August 14th? More gravitational waves detected, with greater evidence. For the original report: http://www.ligo.org/detections/GW170814.php

Link: Oops, it happened again

Date: Sun Oct 1 19:07:49 2017
User: ejchap
Message:
great news ejchap

Date: Tue Oct 3 13:04:27 2017
User: TNmountainman
Message:
Well, we knew this was coming, but I didn't expect it this quickly. That, to me, validates how obvious it was that this was "Big, big, BIG (science) news". What an amazing time to be alive to have these tools at our disposal.

Link: gravity wave research gets the Nobel

Date: Tue Oct 3 13:34:41 2017
User: TNmountainman
Message:
Back on Feb 16, 2016 (12:12:38), in this thread, I posted a link that was entitled, "This just might nail them down", which was a link to the "Science" magazine article about the discovery. Within that article is this quote: ""This will win a Nobel Prize", says Marc Kamionkowski, a theorist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland."" Although that was clear even then, I just think this is a very quick confirmation of the importance of this, on Nobel Prize-time scales.

Date: Tue Oct 3 13:59:49 2017
User: The_Inquisitor
Message:
But, does this explain why the moon is flat?

Date: Tue Oct 3 14:56:44 2017
User: TNmountainman
Message:
No, silly. Assuming you're not referring to the normal equatorial bulge, then "Bad Astronomy" has the answer you seek. One would think, with all the inquisiting you've done in your time, you'd have known about refraction and all that.

Link: Why the moon is flat

Date: Tue Oct 3 15:28:56 2017
User: The_Inquisitor
Message:
That looks like one of Tom Brady's deflated footballs.

Date: Tue Oct 3 15:51:16 2017
User: TNmountainman
Message:
Sort of. But Brady was more an "infractor" rather than a refractor, no?

Date: Sat Nov 18 03:01:23 2017
User: TNmountainman
Message:
This is now five confirmed. And this/these are remarkable by how small (relatively speaking) they are. LIGO and Virgo are hitting their stride. I'll say it again - what an amazing time to be alive as this knowledge accumulates.

Link: Oops, it happened (yet) again

Date: Wed Mar 14 03:24:10 2018
User: TNmountainman
Message:
Although very sad, I think this qualifies. I suspect he's now getting answers to all the questions he's had - or it doesn't matter to him any more. What a GIANT of physics and cosmology..... Doubt he can be replaced in this current generation.

Link: Stephan Hawking moves on

Date: Wed Mar 14 05:13:03 2018
User: TitanicTony
Message:
Thanks, TN. Stephen Hawking definitely had a giant intellect!!

Date: Wed Mar 14 10:54:14 2018
User: BuzzClik
Message:
Hawking was remarkable in his contributions, and his willingness to participate in pop culture spoke volumes of his character: Star Trek TNG, Big Bang Theory, The Simpsons, Futurama, etc. One of my favorite Hawking moments was actually about him in an online conversation. As internet discussions often go, there was a lot of stupid on display: "My brother-in-law is a physicist, and he thinks Hawking is way overrated. He calls Hawking's book, 'A Brief Waste of Time.'" Mr. BIL likely spends his day saying other profound things like, "Welcome to Geek Squad...."

Date: Fri Mar 16 09:38:44 2018
User: BuzzClik
Message:
Summarizing...

Link: Top 10 Unforgettable Stephen Hawking Cameos in Pop Culture

Date: Thu Jul 12 12:57:28 2018
User: TNmountainman
Message:
Ok, this is pretty big news. Not (imo) as big as the successful detection of gravity waves (which was the reason I started this thread), but it does help open up yet another avenue for study of distant galaxies. Unfortunately, CNN used their "Health and Wellness" writer to do the story, and it is consequently poorly written in some manners. But she tried hard, and it does a decent job of describing this stuff to the lay public - I guess. This version provides some pics and diagrams to help understand a bit better. "Pics" 3,4,6, and 8 are diagrams that may help conceptualize the process for some: https://www.space.com/41147-cosmic-neutrino-origin-traced-icecube-images.html

Link: neutrino astronomy may finally be getting off the ground

Date: Fri Mar 29 12:32:03 2019
User: Kaos
Message:
Assuming this isn't an elaborate April Fools story (ala the Sport Illustrated story about Sidd Finch), this is the most interesting bit of science news to me since CRISPR.

Link: The Day the Dinosaurs died

Date: Fri Mar 29 14:07:44 2019
User: Klepp
Message:
I saw Sidd Finch throw a 12 inning , one-hit SHO for the (Tidewater) Tides back in '84...too bad dude never got the opportunity to team up with Doc Gooden--a dreamy 1-2 punch at the top of the rotation hey?...possibly unseen since the likes of Spahn and Sain, oof!...though for my money I'd take Lefty Williams and Eddie Cicotte at their best as the best (long as they ain't paid off).

Date: Fri Mar 29 15:38:49 2019
User: TNmountainman
Message:
I once saw Sidd Finch and Bill Brasky go toe-to-toe for 3 days in an special All-Star game in Japan. They called it a tie at 0-0 after 87 innings. Both pitchers struck out every batter they faced. Catchers with heavy-duty mitts had to be rotated every other batter. I also watched Finch and Brasky take turns hitting batting practice at an exhibition. They stopped it because of all the broken windows in the office buildings in the next block. Little-known fact: baseballs thrown by Finch, followed by Brasky, is how new models of bulletproof vests are tested in secret labs for the FBI. Bill Brasky and Sidd Finch once took turns blocking blows by Chuck Norris in an action movie - blindfolded. Bill Brasky!

Date: Fri Mar 29 17:20:37 2019
User: mrbuck
Message:
I was there on opening night at the West Virginia Carnagie Hall, when Sidd Finch played Bist du bei mir, a solo for French Horn. He was wearing but one boot. mrbuck

Date: Fri Mar 29 22:27:21 2019
User: ix
Message:
years later he was interviewed and asked about the boot, how did he lose one. he replied that he didn't lose one, he found one.

Date: Sat Mar 30 03:29:27 2019
User: TNmountainman
Message:
Sorry Kaos, to interrupt your train of discourse, but I just couldn't resist riding further on Klepp's comment. Like most science-minded folks, I've been fascinated by the KT layer controversy, etc., since the mesmerizing discovery of the Iridium layer way back when - followed later by the crater site. The article does a good job of painting that picture, but as we know, computer modeling even with the best supercomputers, is so incredibly dependent on initial conditions (put into the computer). So there is tremendous variance in the projections of the specific conditions created by the impact, but surely there's no doubt that a catastrophe was let loose. The other thing the author could have done was give more of a representation of the other side of the argument, for what DePalma avows is very far from being accepted by all. In fact, until recently, the other view had been gaining credence, not so much by the absence of stuff in that 3-meter layer, but for other reasons, too (which I can't recall off the top of my headbone at the moment). Seems like I read a fairly detailed article last year(?) with a lot of weight the other direction. May (or may not) have been in "Nature" or "Science"...... But recently, it seems, as the article does indicate, that the momentum may have swung back to the original extinction event hypothesis. One more thing he could have also included was the apparent history of quite a few extinction events, altho the 65-million-years-ago one seems to have been one of the biggest - maybe not counting much further back, of course. The ones (2 or 3) in the 200-250 million-years-ago time frame may even have been bigger. (There were more bigger chunks still floating around back then.) Sidelight: most know about the cenotes of the Yucatan; most(?) don't know that this impact is what set in force their creation (as best as we know). I love stuff like this, and even more the recent paleoarcheology discoveries coming seemingly monthly, focusing on the history of hominids, and should be on everyone's (well.....I guess that's personal opinion) interest list. I think the most important questions we as humans can ponder are "Where did we come from?"; and "Where are we going?". Which of course bring up Fermi's paradox (as it relates to "us") -- exactly *how* will we do ourselves in? Your comparison to CRISPR is interesting.... How the dinosaurs died is going WAY back in time; CRISPR could show us what's gonna happen out in the other direction - both near, and fuzzier, far. I've heard it said (haven't seen it with my own eyes) that Bill Brasky can take a T.Rex thighbone, take a bite out of it, chew it around in his mouth a few minutes, and then spit out about a dozen live baby T.Rexs. He probably has a CRISPR machine in his salivary glands or something.

Date: Sat Mar 30 12:15:56 2019
User: Kaos
Message:
I saw that this Article is going to be in the April 8th print addition of the New Yorker and I thought if it is already online why not put it into the April 1st addition then it immediately occurred it is almost too good to be true which brought the infamous Sidd Finch story to mind. If it does pass muster it is just amazing that there is an extremely well preserved 3-D snapshot of life in the Dakotas the exact day the big one hit 60-some million years ago. BTW the author is a fairly successful fiction writer (so he has money) which would likely be why DePalma reached out to him early on. But, of course, since Preston is a fiction author that also made me think of Sidd.

Date: Sat Mar 30 14:07:11 2019
User: ix
Message:
interesting article, but one thing troubled me. in the 5th paragraph are the statements: >> About seventy-five per cent of all species went extinct this i'm fine with but then it is stated: >> More than 99.9999 per cent of all living organisms on Earth died how can this be stated with confidence, i would think that correctly and accurately interpreting data to that kind of precision would be difficult for an event that occurred recently (especially since the remaining humans might not all be PhD candidates) but for something that happened 65 millions years ago??

Date: Sat Mar 30 14:14:30 2019
User: TNmountainman
Message:
You are correct. I can quibble with several of the statements early on in the article - and other scientists do. But.....that said, if one considers that (hypothetically, at that time) maybe 90-95+% of the living organisms were tiny creatures in the ocean, and that that got "killed", it's at least plausible. But no serious scientist (I don't think) would claim that with *any* degree of certainty. We, in present time, can't even determine _____________________________________ [fill in your own pet dispute]. Still, all *that* said, if indeed he's found what he thinks he has, then that *should* put this topic to rest.

Date: Sat Mar 30 14:50:25 2019
User: The_Inquisitor
Message:
Isn't all of this just a fantasy conspiracy to get more government money grants since everybody knows that it has been factually established that the earth was created 6,000 years ago?

Date: Sat Mar 30 14:57:21 2019
User: ix
Message:
tn, thanks for your reply. there's just so much that triggers my marginal credence. one of my biggest peeves (and i have no doubt one of yours too) is the phrase "it is believed" or "it is said". if i hear that "it is believed that her spirit haunts the building" i usually think to myself "i believe the building has bad plumbing", or "people are fucking tools" and wish they had stated my belief instead. since i believe it, then it is believed.

Date: Sat Mar 30 15:11:12 2019
User: ix
Message:
>> it has been factually established that the earth was created 6,000 years ago i believe the earth was created 5,435 years ago. therefore it is believed that the date of 6,000 years is erroneous.

Date: Sat Mar 30 15:46:44 2019
User: The_Inquisitor
Message:
Thank you. A true scientist will demand exactitude. I appreciate that.

Date: Mon Apr 1 13:56:05 2019
User: Klepp
Message:
The "odderon"...

Link: LHC discovery

Date: Wed Apr 10 16:38:37 2019
User: TitanicTony
Message:
THE FIRST-EVER PHOTO OF A BLACK HOLE: An international scientific team on Wednesday announced a milestone in astrophysics - the first-ever photo of a black hole - using a global network of telescopes to gain insight into celestial objects with gravitational fields so strong no matter or light can escape. The research was conducted by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project, an international collaboration begun in 2012 to try to directly observe the immediate environment of a black hole using a global network of Earth-based telescopes. The announcement was made in simultaneous news conferences in Washington, Brussels, Santiago, Shanghai, Taipei and Tokyo. The image reveals the black hole at the centre of Messier 87, a massive galaxy in the nearby Virgo galaxy cluster. This black hole resides about 54 million light-years from Earth.

Date: Wed Apr 10 18:31:12 2019
User: The_Inquisitor
Message:
Is it really a photo of a black hole, or a photo of the area surrounding a black hole? Would it look the same from the sides or from behind? How do we know this isn't fake science?

Date: Wed Apr 10 20:08:46 2019
User: TNmountainman
Message:
I 'saw' this "event" coming, and didn't think worth mentioning. No offense, Tony, but just doesn't strike me as momentous, especially given the obvious oxymoronic-ness of the claim. Now........if some sort of significant information can be gleaned from better understanding the event horizon........then that might be a different story. And that's quite possible - down the road. But it's not "fake science" - which is in itself an oxymoronic term. It's either "fake", or "science"; can't really be both, technically-speaking. (Yes, there are disreputable people who 'fake' science -- but then that's not truly science.) And it's a solid team, so it's 'real' science. At least imo.

Date: Wed Apr 10 21:36:34 2019
User: jamesblackburn-lynch
Message:
How about this one? On the same day as the “pictures” of the black hole, a new species of humans was discovered that live only 67,000 years ago! And they were only three feet tall. Damn!

Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/10/science/homo-luzonensis-philippines-evolution.html

Date: Wed Apr 10 21:46:48 2019
User: The_Interpreter
Message:
Now that is definitely fake news since ix has stated that the earth is only 5435 years old. Are you calling ix a liar?

Date: Thu Apr 11 03:50:12 2019
User: TitanicTony
Message:
Thanks, James, that was fascinating!! And, TN, obviously what excites you, is different than what excites me. What I reported above is definitely BIG (headline) news here in Europe!

Date: Thu Apr 11 04:15:20 2019
User: TNmountainman
Message:
YES, james! (Altho I've so far kept myself from waxing interminably on the numerous other related developments in this field.) As I've said many times (even on this board, I think, but am not positive), the two most important questions (see caveat below) we can ask as humans are "Where did we come from?", and "Where are we going?". [caveat: excluding religious questions, out-of-bounds for this discussion forum, but deeply intertwined with the two stated above.] I knew this was coming, too, as it's been a poorly-kept 'secret' for a while. In fact, I hear there's maybe preliminary evidence for yet another species or sub-species there. How utterly, indescribably fascinating this particular subject is. Before I even finished reading the title of the story, I was already wondering how they were going to treat it relative to h. floresiensis. This branch of science, in collaboration with the DNA secrets several of the recent discoveries have brought to light, make it difficult (impossible, really) to grasp the whole grand chain of events that got us where we are today. Too much to absorb! The new discoveries are coming monthly, it seems, and much of it is high-quality data, if confusing. Just a half generation ago, who knew we could completely figure out the entire human genome, figure out we're part Neanderthal (and some of us part Denisovan) (see the earlier thread "things I'm glad I know"), or realize we only *thought* we (roughly) knew our place on the evolutionary ""tree""? I'll try to expand on this further tomorrow; SOOOO many more questions! Which of course is how science works -- 'answering' one question often begets copious new ones...... And Tony, just because something is headline news in the lay media doesn't prove in any way that it's "BIG science news". Again, at least imo. I'm quite interested in black holes, actually (and have been since the early '70s, when they were totally theoretical, and even most astro-physicists didn't buy into their existence), but a "picture" of one (of course at best being only a blurry image of the event horizon) doesn't seem important, relatively-speaking. I mean, any x-ray images already obtained are bound to be more elucidative, right? What's FAR more fascinating is the physics that are ongoing *at*, and *'beyond'* said horizon, and yet does the popular press publicize that? Uh, no. IMO......"black hole" has become a popular catch-phrase in the last, oh, 20 years since Hawking's work became popular, and virtually none of the lay public understands the implications of the event horizon, or what mysterious consequences *may* arise from the fate of whatever matter falls into them. *THAT'S* the cool stuff - at least that's how it seems to me. Maybe I'm wrong, but it's not clear to me how a "picture" gets at those mysteries - especially, again, since we already can see the x-ray stuff, the jets, etc.

Date: Thu Apr 11 06:00:29 2019
User: TitanicTony
Message:
Well, it seems that a huge (BIG, and expensive) effort went into acquiring that picture!!!! But, then, to you, expensive science is probably not the same as 'BIG' science. Too bad... IMO, if I say it is BIG science news then (for me, and a lot of other people) it IS BIG science news! In fact, for me, it is the biggest science news of the year! [But, then, I didn't start this thread, and I will refrain from contributing in the future.]


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