Saturday, December 29, 2018
Saturday, December 22, 2018
Saturday, November 17, 2018
Quantum field theory
Every elementary particle in the universe is a point excitation of an underlying field that permeates the entire universe. There are different fields for different types of particles and those fields can interact with each other. Some fields carry force like the electromagnetic. Combine the fields and you get all the matter in the universe and the forces that drive them. And what makes the whole thing work is energy. Lots and lots of energy.
I sometimes refer to this as "God's computer program."
Saturday, November 10, 2018
Sunday, November 4, 2018
How do psychopaths behave as children, especially around other children their age?
Thursday, November 1, 2018
Monday, October 22, 2018
Sunday, October 14, 2018
The future
In 500 million years the tectonic plate movement and geological activity on planet Earth will have stopped, causing it to have a fate similar to Mars. The planet will be dry, lifeless and very cold.
Within half a million years it is extremely likely that the Yellowstone supervolcano will erupt, wiping out life in several nearby states, and causing an environmental catastrophe worldwide. However, we are already due for an eruption, and the underground volcano has shown increased activity over the last 30 years. This is a disaster of enormous scale waiting to happen; we just don't know when it will happen. Fortunately people are looking for ways to relieve some of the pressure that is building up beneath the National Park.
Within 100 years we will be almost completely out of fossil fuels, so we will have to rely on other energy sources. The last remaining fossil fuel will be coal, which is estimated to be gone by the year 2150.
Within 50 years machine intelligence will surpass that of all humans combined. This event has been dubbed "the singularity", and it will forever change our fate. From that moment on machines will make most of the technological advances, and possibly at an ever accelerating rate. Over time humans will become more integrated with technology, and we will no longer be purely biological.
Tuesday, October 9, 2018
Friday, October 5, 2018
Origin of birds
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_birds
I keep hearing that dinosaurs are not extinct, but still exist in the form of birds.
I do not think that birds are dinosaurs in the way that the vast majority of people would think of dinosaurs, which is as very large reptiles, with maybe a few smaller versions. Instead, they are evolved from dinosaurs.
However, theropods are one type of dinosaur that is now thought to have more resemble birds in both their morphology and behavior, with many of them having feathers, including the mighty T-Rex. Birds are also theropods.
Some people are trying to activate dormant genes in chickens to see if they if they can produce some dinosaur characteristics. For example, with a little fiddling they produced a chicken with teeth.
Friday, September 21, 2018
Tuesday, September 18, 2018
Thursday, September 13, 2018
Sunday, September 9, 2018
Why You Shouldn't Mix Bleach and Vinegar and Why People Do It Anyway
Wednesday, August 29, 2018
Battery advancement
Monday, August 27, 2018
Sunday, August 26, 2018
Thursday, August 23, 2018
Wednesday, August 22, 2018
Monday, August 13, 2018
Wednesday, August 8, 2018
A Scientist Spilled 2 Drops Organic Mercury On Her Hand. This Is What Happened To Her Brain.
Years ago I had an environmental activist knock my door. His agenda was that his organization wanted tighter government controls on mercury emissions. I wasn't particularly interested at the time.
When it comes to poisons, concentration is everything. What could be deadly in one dose could also be harmless in trace amounts. Chemical structure is also important.
https://youtu.be/NJ7M01jV058
Tuesday, August 7, 2018
Monday, August 6, 2018
Sunday, August 5, 2018
Saturday, August 4, 2018
Tuesday, July 31, 2018
Saturday, July 28, 2018
Climate Sensitiviy
Friday, July 20, 2018
Fwd: Liver disease deaths spike among young Americans
Wednesday, July 18, 2018
Saturday, July 14, 2018
Wednesday, July 11, 2018
Voyager: The Farthest in Space.
I have a deep interest in physics
Tuesday, July 3, 2018
Beyond the Higgs: What's Next for the LHC?
Sunday, July 1, 2018
Fwd: Active Antarctic Volcano
But as the team conducted its research, it found high quantities of an isotope of helium, which comes almost exclusively from mantle, Loose said.
"When you find helium-3, it's like a fingerprint for volcanism. We found that it is relatively abundant in the seawater at the Pine Island shelf.
"The volcanic heat sources were found beneath the fastest moving and the fastest melting glacier in Antarctica, the Pine Island Glacier," Loose said. "It is losing mass the fastest."
He said the amount of ice sliding into the ocean is measured in gigatons. A gigaton equals 1 billion metric tons.
https://today.uri.edu/news/
Saturday, June 30, 2018
Wednesday, June 27, 2018
Fwd: Infared stealth blanket
Less than one millimeter thick, the sheet absorbs approximately 94 percent of the infrared light it encounters. Trapping so much light means that warm objects beneath the cloaking material become almost completely invisible to infrared detectors.
Importantly, the stealth material can strongly absorb light in the so-called mid- and long-wavelength infrared range, the type of light emitted by objects at approximately human body temperature.
To trap infrared light, Jiang and colleagues turned to a unique material called black silicon, which is commonly incorporated into solar cells
https://www.sciencedaily.com/
Fwd: Using wireless signals to set humans through walls
Friday, May 18, 2018
Fwd: World's Strongest Bio-Material Outperforms Steel and Spider Silk
This process, called hydrodynamic focussing, helped to align the nanofibres in the right direction as well as their self-organisation into a well-packed macroscopic thread. No glue or any other component is needed, the nanofibres assemble into a tight thread held together by supramolecular forces between the nanofibres, for example electrostatic and Van der Waals forces
Measurements showed a tensile stiffness of 86 gigapascals (GPa) for the material and a tensile strength of 1.57 GPa. "The bio-based nanocellulose fibres fabricated here are 8 times stiffer and have strengths higher than natural dragline spider silk fibres," says Söderberg. "If you are looking for a bio-based material, there is nothing quite like it. And it is also stronger than steel and any other metal or alloy as well as glass fibres and most other synthetic materials." The artificial cellulose fibres can be woven into a fabric to create materials for various applications. The researchers estimate that the production costs of the new material can compete with those of strong synthetic fabrics
https://www.rdmag.com/news/