Space Travel

Science fiction romanticizes space travel, but what it really romanticizes is traveling to other worlds and finding alien creatures. Space itself is not particularly romantic and is perhaps best described as "the big empty." Really, really empty. The nearest star is about 4.2 light-years away, and the nearest large spiral galaxy is about 2.5 million light-years away. Between these things is an almost unimaginable amount of nothing, which is not the least bit romantic or exciting. Traveling to another star requires so much energy that it is close to impossible, or at least impractical with our current technology. There are also many problems and dangers. I don't see us traveling to another star for at least a few thousand years. Fortunately, there is plenty to explore within our own solar system.

Oxford Electric Bell

Ancient Life as Old as the Universe

Logorrhea

A Journey Through the Atmosphere

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CerJbZ-dm0

In the video, the person jumps from 19 miles up and survives.

The atmosphere is conventionally considered to end at 100 km, or about 62 miles, above Earth's surface, a boundary known as the Kármán line. In reality, there is no sharp boundary where the atmosphere ends. It gradually becomes thinner with increasing altitude, eventually becoming an extremely tenuous atmosphere that approaches a vacuum.

I saw a video where someone compared the atmosphere to a peel on an apple.  Good thing we have it.

LBN438 Lizard Pillar Nebula

A photographer on Facebook published this image of the LBN 438 Lizard Pillar Nebula, a collection of gas where new stars are born. It is roughly 8 to 10 light-years across and about 1,200 light-years away.

I suspect that nobody has heard of this nebula, but imagine being able to see a completely different part of our galaxy so clearly.

Space is interesting, but it would be almost impossible for humans to ever go there. Maybe thousands of years from now, our descendants will have technology that would make such a trip possible, but it would be extremely costly, probably for very little practical benefit.

This reminds me of a Dilbert cartoon where he said that rather than travel the world, he just looks at pretty pictures online.

How Dark Is It On Pluto?

The THICKNESS of our ATMOSPHERE !?

The Paradox of an Infinite Universe

Nobody has EVER seen an El Niño like this

Tennessee Stellarator Fusion Plant License

On Tue, Sep 22, 2026 at 5:11 PM Larry wrote:

Tennessee grants first fusion license for 400MW stellarator plant

Maybe getting a license is the first step toward building a reactor. I'm not sure whether this represents some sort of breakthrough toward practical fusion. I don't know enough about it to say.

Although practical nuclear fusion would be a tremendous breakthrough for mankind, I am extremely skeptical that we will reach it anytime soon.

If I can believe the numbers I have seen on solar and wind, we should be able to supplement our slowly declining fossil fuel reserves with them. They are not my favorite ways to generate power, however, because of their reliability issues.

For a really long time, I have thought that geothermal was interesting. My reasoning is that there is a tremendous amount of energy inside the planet.

What's the Only Country In The World Without Mosquitoes?

How One Company Secretly Poisoned The Planet

 https://neeeeews.blogspot.com/2026/05/how-one-company-secretly-poisoned-planet.html

Some Surprising Eponyms

The Ontological Status of Phenylalanine In Sugar Free Sodas

https://neeeeews.blogspot.com/2026/09/the-ontological-status-of-phenylalanine.html

The Most Important Thing that Ever Happened

Trump says some childhood vaccines will be split into separate shots

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

I'm quite disappointed with Trump.  This is an issue that has been very thoroughly studied.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5ETZy1pmiI

Google AI:

There is no credible scientific evidence demonstrating that vaccines cause autism. Decades of rigorous global research involving millions of children have consistently shown no causal link or association between vaccination and autism spectrum disorders. [1, 2, 3]

The overwhelming scientific and medical consensus is supported by major global public health organizations, including the National Academy of Medicine, the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and the National Medical Association. [1, 2, 3]

The Origin of the Myth

The belief that vaccines cause autism stems from a single 1998 case series published by Andrew Wakefield in The Lancet. The study suggested a link between the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism based on just 12 cherry-picked children. It was later discovered that the data was fraudulent and methodologically invalid. The Lancet fully retracted the paper, and Wakefield lost his medical license. [1, 2, 3, 4]

Key Scientific Findings

Since then, numerous large-scale epidemiological and cohort studies have definitively debunked the link across three major areas of concern:

The MMR Vaccine: Massive global studies tracking millions of children across the U.S., Denmark, the U.K., and Japan found absolutely no difference in autism rates between vaccinated and unvaccinated children. [1, 2]
Thimerosal (Mercury Preservative): Although thimerosal was removed or significantly reduced in childhood vaccines globally as a precaution over two decades ago, autism rates continued to rise. This demonstrates that the preservative does not trigger autism. [1, 2, 3]
Immune System Load: Research confirms that an infant’s immune system is fully capable of handling multiple vaccines at once. Cumulative exposure to childhood vaccine antigens does not negatively impact neurodevelopment or increase autism risk. [1, 2]

Why the Misconception Persists

The primary driver of the myth is temporal coincidence. The first noticeable signs of autism typically manifest in toddlers around the exact same age that children receive their routine early childhood vaccinations. Because these two events happen around the same time, it can easily lead to the false assumption that one caused the other. [1, 2, 3]

The Actual Causes of Autism

Autism is a complex neurodevelopmental condition that begins well before birth. According to the Autism Science Foundation, the primary causes include: [1, 2]

Genetics: Strong hereditary factors account for most cases, with single gene variants and familial risk playing massive roles.
Prenatal Environment: Structural brain differences originate in the womb and are tied to factors like advanced parental age, maternal metabolic disorders, premature birth, and prenatal exposure to certain infections or severe air pollution. [1, 2, 3]

The rising prevalence of autism diagnoses in recent decades is not due to vaccines, but rather to broadened diagnostic criteria, improved universal screening, and significantly higher awareness among parents and healthcare providers. [1, 2]

Owls can actually be adorable

Scientists Explain How Do You Pronounce URANUS

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

I prefer the more polite pronunciation.

This Woman Cured Her Cancer with an Insane Method

There have been reports of COVID-19 shrinking tumors, but not consistently.

The Universe Is Speeding Up...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRxvK9m6d6I

Spy on the world

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83tdcto6AZc

Super El Niño

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VNx03S0VK0

Psychiatrist: “Everyone Is Wrong About The Lindsay Clancy Case”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOtNDXOypQg&t=471s

The correct statistic is that there are roughly 10,000 live births in the United States daily.

We Are Witnessing Cancer's Downfall

The Brutal Reality of Traveling to Another Star

Science fiction presents us with a false image of space travel, making it seem as though it will eventually become as routine as airline travel. Consider the scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey where a spaceship has a stewardess who serves meals. Likewise, science fiction is full of planets that are not too different from Earth and are compatible with human life, giving the impression that the human race can expand out to the stars without too much difficulty.

There are five things that make interstellar space travel nearly impossible.

1. Earth-like planets are very rare. We are unlikely to encounter worlds that would be worth traveling to.
2. Space is full of deadly radiation that is difficult to shield against. This becomes exponentially worse at high fractions of the speed of light. At those speeds, even simple interstellar dust particles become explosive missiles that could destroy a spacecraft.
3. The distances are so vast that interstellar travel becomes extremely difficult.
4. The energy requirements are enormous. We simply don't have the resources to accelerate a spaceship to anything approaching relativistic speeds.
5. The cost is enormous. It could take the resources of an entire planet to create an interstellar ship.

If we wanted to send a probe to a nearby star, we would have to send a computer AI with heavy shielding at a modest speed and be willing to wait 50,000 years for the ship to arrive. However, if we did this in the near future, it could be self-defeating because future generations will likely be able to create faster ships that could arrive in a fraction of the time. Being able to create a ship twice as fast a thousand years from now would make the first ship we send pointless.

I feel the same way about sending humans to Mars. It is such a perilous and expensive journey, just to go to a big, dead rock with about a third of Earth's gravity. We will never have a viable colony on Mars because the planet is simply too hostile. It is far too cold, has significant radiation hazards, and its chemical makeup is not conducive to human life.

It seems possible, if not likely, that life could have existed on Mars billions of years ago. Finding that out might be interesting, but we don't have to send people to Mars to study the planet. We can send unmanned probes much more cost-effectively.

The future of humanity does not involve expanding out to the stars, at least not in the next few thousand years. Although we could create orbital habitats, these will never be cost-effective. The real future of humanity involves making the best use of the resources on planet Earth. We need to manage the planet well while slowing population growth, which creates more competition and conflict over natural resources. The vast fortunes that we spend on space exploration could be better spent managing our existence on Earth.

We live on Spaceship Earth, which is traveling around the galaxy at 140 miles per second. Not all the stars in the Milky Way travel at the same speed, so in 1.29 million years, another star will come within 0.14 light-years of our star. That is close enough to send a space probe. We just have to be patient. 😀

Magnetism #Science #Magnets

@alexpoiry3988
5 days ago
If anyone is interested, I think this is a ferrocell. Basically there is a small amount of very dilute ferrofluid trapped between 2 transparent plates. The edge lighting scatters the light so you can see the effect of the magnetic waves.

The Life Expectancy Lies That Won't Die

Do Animals Know They're Pets?

Joe Rogan Is Blown Away by What Homo Erectus Could Do

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1uQRGo8sMc

Homo Erectus emerged around 1.9 to 2 million years ago in Africa.  They went extinct roughly 110,000 years ago.  They also evolved into other human species.

I suspect that they didn't seem much different to our ancestors.

There is some evidence of different human species interbreeding.  This includes humans and Neanderthals, but also Homo Erectus with Denisovans.

Modern Europeans have about 1% to 2% Neanderthal DNA in their individual genomes, with essentially 100% of people with European ancestry carrying these traces.

The one thing ‘Breaking Bad’ couldn’t show you!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUxDyPEck7g

Can technology solve all our problems?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6me9riotp0&t=987s