Science News: August 2021

Monday, August 30, 2021

7 Ways To Pull Carbon From The Atmosphere

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2J05vC3umE0

As soon as I post comments to this video, they seem to disappear. It is possible that they are being censored because I am including links.

Here are my comments...

Iron Fertilization, in theory, can pull as much CO2 as we want from the atmosphere: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_fertilization

However, all this fuss over CO2 fails to understand the history of CO2 on this planet. If you look at the atmospheric CO2 level over the last 40 million years, you will see that it is nosedive. (https://www.pnas.org/content/99/7/4167 Figure 4.) This is because natural processes sequester CO2. We were actually running out of atmospheric CO2. During the last period of glaciation, the CO2 level dropped almost to the level where all terrestrial plants die. The entire history of the Earth is one of massive CO2 decline.

All this fuss over global warming fails to understand the temperature cycle on planet earth. Every 100,000 years the temperature of the planet quickly shoots up 8 to 15 degrees celsius. Then it remains stable for 10,000 years after which it goes into rapid decline and then we get 80 to 90 thousand years of massive glaciation where half of North America is covered by ice. All of the human civilization arose during the brief 10,000-year warm period that we are currently in. Science has said that no matter what we do, we will be back to an ice age in another 10,000 years. The period from 1500 to 1850 was actually known as "The Little Ice Age." The earth appeared to be cooling until we interfered with all that pesky CO2.

What causes these changes? The Milankovich cycles. The other planets tug on the Earth's orbit and affect its tilt. We are currently halfway between the maximum tilt (which melts ice near the poles) and the minimum tilt. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles)

Friday, August 27, 2021

Scanning electron micrographs of an Intel i486

I thought that this is pretty interesting up to the 6.5-minute mark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U885cIhOXBM&t=73s

Tuesday, August 24, 2021

Why Are There No Quasars Near Us?

So the largest Black Hole that we have detected has a mass of 66 billion suns, and due to friction gives off light equal to 22 trillion suns. If you lived in the same galaxy, you probably would be fried. It confirms my observation that the universe is a violent place.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqXZb_fowWI

Saturday, August 21, 2021

An evidence review of face masks against COVID-19 | PNAS

Conclusion

Our review of the literature offers evidence in favor of widespread mask use as source control to reduce community transmission: Nonmedical masks use materials that obstruct particles of the necessary size; people are most infectious in the initial period postinfection, where it is common to have few or no symptoms (45, 46, 141); nonmedical masks have been effective in reducing transmission of respiratory viruses; and places and time periods where mask usage is required or widespread have shown substantially lower community transmission.

The available evidence suggests that near-universal adoption of nonmedical masks when out in public, in combination with complementary public health measures, could successfully reduce ReRe to below 1, thereby reducing community spread if such measures are sustained. Economic analysis suggests that mask wearing mandates could add 1 trillion dollars to the US GDP (32, 34).

Models suggest that public mask wearing is most effective at reducing spread of the virus when compliance is high (39). We recommend that mask use requirements are implemented by governments, or, when governments do not, by organizations that provide public-facing services. Such mandates must be accompanied by measures to ensure access to masks

https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118

During past national crises, persons in the US have willingly united and endured temporary sacrifices for the common good. Recovery of the nation from the COVID-19 pandemic requires the combined efforts of families, friends, and neighbors working together in unified public health action. When masks are worn and combined with other recommended mitigation measures, they protect not only the wearer but also the greater community. Recommendations for masks will likely change as more is learned about various mask types and as the pandemic evolves. With the emergence of more transmissible SARS-CoV-2 variants, it is even more important to adopt widespread mask wearing as well as to redouble efforts with use of all other nonpharmaceutical prevention measures until effective levels of vaccination are achieved nationally.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2776536

I suspect that mask-wearing is marginally helpful, mostly to prevent the infected from spreading droplets, but not near as good as vaccination. I find that wearing a mask for more than an hour to be pretty uncomfortable around my ears. I am going to try to see if I could find a more comfortable mask.

Tuesday, August 17, 2021

The Most Important Invention of the 20th Century: Transistors

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuFlISa73Sw

Sunday, August 15, 2021

VFX Artists DEBUNK Pentagon UFO Videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHDlfIaBEqw

That Time a Science Fiction Writer Accidentally Almost Revealed the Manhattan project.

https://youtu.be/fIEq_UMraCM

The author Robert Heinlein wrote a story about radioactive weapons of mass destruction midway into World War II. He wrote about weapons that would kill people through radioactivity. This was actually a pretty good story. However, he considered writing about an atomic bomb instead but didn't do so because he thought that the U.S. government might be secretly working on such a weapon. In science fiction, the idea of an atomic bomb predates World War II.

After the Trinity test, engineers at Polaroid noticed that radioactivity in the atmosphere was affecting their photographic film, and so they figured out that an atomic bomb had been detonated. Since the light from the Trinity test could be seen from a great distance, the army had a cover story that a secret weapons depot had exploded.

In the early 1930s, Japanese comic books had stories where the Japanese would be victorious against the United States by destroying the American fleet in a surprise attack.