General Science Thread

[kitzbuel]

Apparently the eclipse is the final nail in round earth theory coffin.

https://www.sbnation.com/nba/2017/8/21/16179832/kyrie-irving-solar-eclipse-earth-is-flat

[DZ]

Apparently the eclipse is the final nail in round earth theory coffin.

https://www.sbnation.com/nba/2017/8/...-earth-is-flat

I could go with their theory except for this:

While the Earth is a flat disc, it’s also in a bubble or dome, in which the moon and sun travel back and forth. This is how flat Earth truthers explain sunset and sunrise.

If anyone has watched a sporting event that is in a dome, like say a final four or superbowl, it's pretty damn obvious when one is in a dome. I walk outside and don't feel/see a dome.

Dumb theory.

s/ - - Except the flat earth theory is dumb. UFOs are real, the earth is round, everyone knows that.

[GPGUgrad]

I watched the other day this documentary about the journey of
both Voyager 1 and 2 and what it took to get there.

Pretty interesting.

[DZ]

Hubble Spots Possible Evidence of Water on Earth-Sized TRAPPIST-1 Planets http://www.popularmechanics.com/spac...pist-1-planets

Perhaps the most exciting exoplanet discovery to date was announced earlier this year when researchers using multiple telescopes confirmed that there are seven Earth-sized planets orbiting a star just 40 light-years away. Planetary scientists believed these were rocky worlds with atmospheres, possibly capable of supporting liquid water, especially the three planets that orbit in the habitable zone where surface temperatures could hover between 0 and 100 degrees Celsius.

Now, Hubble has spotted possible signs of water. An international team of scientists, led by Swiss astronomer Vincent Bourrier of the Observatoire de l'Université de Genève, used the space telescope to study the amount of ultraviolet light hitting the planets and measure the amount of hydrogen these worlds are venting into space. The results suggest the innermost planets, TRAPPIST-1b and TRAPPIST-1c, could have lost as much as 20 Earth-oceans-worth of water in the last eight billion years. The outer planets, however, including e, f, and g, which orbit in the habitable zone, would have lost less water, and could still retain vast stores of liquid water on the surface.

[Pallet]

Hey Dixie - I believe you like podcasts so I have a recommendation for you. I find Infinite Monkey Cage on BBC to be fun and informative, but you have to enjoy British humor and accents.

[DZ]

Hey Dixie - I believe you like podcasts so I have a recommendation for you. I find Infinite Monkey Cage on BBC to be fun and informative, but you have to enjoy British humor and accents.

Definitely going to give it a shot - combining of the best here, with Infinite Monkey Cage and Neil Degras Tyson

[DZ]

Hubble Spots Possible Evidence of Water on Earth-Sized TRAPPIST-1 Planets http://www.popularmechanics.com/spac...pist-1-planets

Look at how close to the sun each of those planets in the Trapist system are. If WE lived in the Trapist system, our moon trip would have essentially been almost a planet to planet visit. Such a dim star that the habitable zone is like right up against it.

[DZ]

Raise your hand if you knew that the hurricane hunter aircraft did not fly "above" the storm, but flew at 5,000 ft through the storm to get to the eye wall?

Badass: http://www.esquire.com/news-politics...icane-drivers/

But this can’t be done from way up above the storm. Nope. To do this you need to fly right through it, at altitudes varying from 1,500 to 10,000 feet. In short, these planes are moving meteorological machines, assembling vast reams of raw data that the guys back on the ground can feed into the computer models, which then give us our updates every few hours on where the best science in the world can tell us the hurricane will keep rolling over the next two, three, four, even five days. It's information that saves, without exaggeration, thousands of lives and millions of dollars a year.

Those aircraft these men and women fly are packed with both high-tech onboard sensors that record all the information about the immediate environment of the airplane (windspeed, direction, pressure, etc.), but also airborne versions of the doppler radar that give them a deeper picture—forwards, slant-wise, and downwards. Then, for a more complete 3D model, each aircraft carries a ton of disposable sensors. Parachute equipped, they drop these out of a tube in the plane and let them send back information every couple of seconds as they descend through the storm to the sea. They also drop packages that record the sea temperature (which tells them how much energy the storm is sucking up into itself), as well as useful stuff like wave heights.

[DZ]

A Delta flight took off DURING the HURRICANE? https://www.wired.com/story/delta-plane-hurricane-irma/

Once the plane landed in San Juan, the alternative—leaving the plane on the tarmac or in a hangar—would probably have destroyed the airplane. “It’s awful hard to keep an airplane that big down to the ground permanently, so it doesn’t move and doesn’t move into other airplanes or into the terminal,”

Ok, I see that. So, what was it doing there in the first place? And who in f'ing hell flew IN as passengers? Because it was only on the ground 40 minutes!

Air traffic control had to stay on the scene, as did the fueling equipment and ground support staff. The flight crew had to get passengers off and then on. And you thought the crew hurried you onto your last flight.

So, the biggest danger was to the people on the ground who had to turn it around? Again, I ask, WTF was doing there in the first place?

Once the airline decided to take off, though, the actual process would have been de rigeur. Moss estimates the Delta pilots would have used maximum takeoff thrust, which is harder on the engine, uses more fuel, and is louder than normal, but also helps the plane accelerate faster and makes it easier for it to climb out and into the sky. That, along with a lower wing flap setting, are standard moves for taking off amidst wind shear—abrupt changes in wind speed and direction over a short distance. In other words: what you might expect from a storm.

Yes, which is precisely why I sat on the tarmac in Atlanta for 50 minutes as a thunderstorm moved over.

From there, the Delta pilots would have used their team on the ground and their on-board radar setup to avoid heavy pockets of rain and wind. (That’s the scary stuff in red). Based on the radar readings, the plane had plenty of time to navigate and reach clear skies at around 20,000 feet. “Looks like it was a nip and tuck thing,” says Field. “They got out before it got too hateful.”

Well, the only thing I've seen that's crazier than taking off "between bands" of a hurricane, were the two crazy Ivans from Aeroflat who decided it was a good day to fly during a hellacious thunder storm.

Anyone who hasn't seen this video - should. It's one minute - because that's how much runway you gotta use when taking off in this - crazy!

[DZ]

BTW: The guy who took the video above obviously thought that it might be useful if he lived and it'd be called "Plaintiff's Exhibit 'A'"

[DZ]

World's Largest Aircraft Starts Engine Tests https://www.livescience.com/60497-wo...ine-tests.html

"In these initial tests, each of the six engines operated as expected," Stratolaunch, which is led by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, announced on Tuesday (Sept. 19). The 747 turbofan engines were loaded with fuel, started one at a time and then allowed to idle at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, the company said.

The double-bodied airplane is designed to serve as a mobile launch platform to carry rockets into low-Earth orbit.

[DZ]

Hope for long suffering families! https://www.sciencedaily.com/release...0925132935.htm


After 15 years in a vegetative state, nerve stimulation restores consciousness

A 35-year-old man who had been in a vegetative state for 15 years after a car accident has shown signs of consciousness after neurosurgeons implanted a vagus nerve stimulator into his chest. The findings show that vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) -- a treatment already in use for epilepsy and depression--can help to restore consciousness even after many years in a vegetative state.

A 35-year-old man who had been in a vegetative state for 15 years after a car accident has shown signs of consciousness after neurosurgeons implanted a vagus nerve stimulator into his chest. The findings reported in Current Biology on September 25 show that vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) -- a treatment already in use for epilepsy and depression -- can help to restore consciousness even after many years in a vegetative state.

[DZ]

BTW: There are somewhere around 100 of you that check-in with each new post. Thank you!


We live in a world where our "news" people feel like nothing but politics matter. I happen to believe that very important news arises in many topics. I like reviewing developing science.


If any of you have special interests that you'd like to hear more about, please let me know below or by PM and I will try to find information you find interesting or useful.

I pledged to find fun topics during the off-season. Sometimes, like the one above, we find stuff that may impact a family near you (or yours).

[Jazzgirl_127]

This is just an anecdote, but last Friday night we toured our closest observatory, it was built in the early 1900s and seeing how it is still operational (and all the old design elements they used to make the dome open up and rotate, and in one room the floor itself rotates) was really cool. We saw 100 year old slides they'd tracked star formations, listened to college students talk about using a high altitude balloon to capture photos of the eclipse, and got to view Saturn through a telescope. The evening ended with them sending us down to "the crypt" which I assumed was just a nickname for something unrelated...oh no, it was an actual crypt, there are human ashes of several of the early astronomy enthusiasts (and their wives) who raised money for the observatory...my boys thought that was a little creepy.

[DZ]

This is just an anecdote, but last Friday night we toured our closest observatory, it was built in the early 1900s and seeing how it is still operational (and all the old design elements they used to make the dome open up and rotate, and in one room the floor itself rotates) was really cool. We saw 100 year old slides they'd tracked star formations, listened to college students talk about using a high altitude balloon to capture photos of the eclipse, and got to view Saturn through a telescope. The evening ended with them sending us down to "the crypt" which I assumed was just a nickname for something unrelated...oh no, it was an actual crypt, there are human ashes of several of the early astronomy enthusiasts (and their wives) who raised money for the observatory...my boys thought that was a little creepy.

Great story. Thank you!

It would creep me out, too.