Sunday, October 20

Tag: Science

They Experimented on Themselves in Secret. What They Discovered Helped Win a War
16Apr By adminNo Comments
Technology

They Experimented on Themselves in Secret. What They Discovered Helped Win a War

The Allied soldiers who weren’t killed limped back from the defeat. It was clear now, they needed to be able to creep up to the beaches days before a raid to get up-to-date information. They needed to know where the Nazis had tunneled into the land, placed explosives, or built machine gun nests. None of their ships or boats could get close enough to the shore without being detected, so the Allies needed miniature submarines—and divers. And they needed science to make those things happen.By this point, Haldane, Spurway, and the other scientists had already given themselves eight seizures and broken several vertebrae for the cause. That’s because, shortly before the disaster at Dieppe, but not in time to stop it, Haldane and his crew had been asked by the Admiralty to pivot and focus on a n...
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The Quest to Map the Inside of the Proton
14Apr By adminNo Comments
Technology

The Quest to Map the Inside of the Proton

“How are matter and energy distributed?” asked Peter Schweitzer, a theoretical physicist at the University of Connecticut. “We don’t know.”Schweitzer has spent most of his career thinking about the gravitational side of the proton. Specifically, he’s interested in a matrix of properties of the proton called the energy-momentum tensor. “The energy-momentum tensor knows everything there is to be known about the particle,” he said.In Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which casts gravitational attraction as objects following curves in space-time, the energy-momentum tensor tells space-time how to bend. It describes, for instance, the arrangement of energy (or, equivalently, mass)—the source of the lion’s share of space-time twisting. It also tracks information about how momentum...
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One of these concept lunar vehicles could join NASA’s Artemis V astronauts on the moon
8Apr By adminNo Comments
Technology

One of these concept lunar vehicles could join NASA’s Artemis V astronauts on the moon

Three companies are vying for the opportunity to send their own lunar vehicle to the moon to support NASA’s upcoming Artemis missions. The this week that it’s chosen Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost and Venturi Astrolab to develop their lunar terrain vehicles (LTV) in a feasibility study over the next year. After that, only one is expected to be selected for a demonstration mission, in which the vehicle will be completed and sent to the moon for performance and safety tests. NASA is planning to use the LTV starting with the Artemis V crew that’s projected to launch in early 2030.The LTV that eventually heads to the moon’s south pole needs to function as both a crewed and uncrewed vehicle, serving sometimes as a mode of transportation for astronauts and other times as a remotely operated...
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Undersea-Aged Champagne Is Starting to Surface
23Dec By adminNo Comments
Technology

Undersea-Aged Champagne Is Starting to Surface

If you’ve ever been hit by a flying champagne cork, you will be painfully aware of the pressure in a bottle of fizz. And that pressure inside—and outside—the bottle has caught the imaginations of champagne innovators.“We conduct many trials every year to fine-tune the pressure to the vintage,” says Louis Roederer’s chef de cave, Jean Baptiste Lécaillon. “We have a lower pressure—so smaller bubbles—[because] we want a seamless and soft mousse.”The pressure inside a bottle of champagne is typically around 6 bar, or three times the pressure of a car tire. But Louis Roederer champagnes can range from 6 to 4.5 bar. “The more acidity you have in the wine, the more aggressive the feeling of the bubbles ... This is also why we are on the low side,” explains Lécaillon, “especially on Cristal, wh...
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Elon Musk wants to colonize Mars. Is that profitable?
13Dec By adminNo Comments
Technology

Elon Musk wants to colonize Mars. Is that profitable?

Austin, TX CNN Business  —  Elon Musk has spent nearly two decades rallying SpaceX fans around his goal of colonizing Mars, something world governments aren’t currently attempting — in part because of the unfathomable price tag such a mission will entail. Musk, the company’s CEO and chief engineer, refers to his interplanetary ambitions more like a sci-fi protagonist with a moral calling than an entrepreneur with a disruptive business plan. “If there’s something terrible that happens on Earth, either made by humans or natural, we want to have, like, life insurance for life as a whole,” Musk said during a virtual Mars conference on Aug. 31. “Then, there’s the kind of excitement and adventure.” ...
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Here’s Scientific Proof Your Cat Will Eat Almost Anything
12Dec By adminNo Comments
Technology

Here’s Scientific Proof Your Cat Will Eat Almost Anything

Don’t let their fluff fool you: Your cat was built for murder. Felines, no matter how chonky, eepy, or boopable, are remarkably adaptable obligate carnivores, down to eat just about anything that fits in their mouth.Well-intentioned (or … threatening?) gifts of dead birds, rats, and lizards are familiar to outdoor cat owners—even my shockingly uncoordinated indoor cat has killed a spider or two in her day. But an analysis published today in Nature Communications, led by Auburn University ecologist Christopher Lepczyk, reveals that there’s shockingly little that cats don’t eat.Compiling evidence from a century of research from across the globe, Lepczyk’s team identified over 2,000 animal species eaten by cats—and that’s only what scientists have recorded so far. Of those species, 347 are a...
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Experimental implant restores Parkinson’s patient’s ability to walk, researchers say
14Nov By adminNo Comments
Health

Experimental implant restores Parkinson’s patient’s ability to walk, researchers say

A new implant targeting Parkinson's disease has restored one man's ability to walk after 25 years of suffering from the disease, according to a study published in the journal Nature Medicine on Monday.Marc Gauthier, 63, was diagnosed with Parkinson's at age 36 and experienced decreased locomotive functioning as the illness progressed. With help from the experimental, surgically implanted device, he is now able to walk over three miles without stopping, according to the study."Getting into an elevator ... sounds simple. For me, before, it was impossible," Gauthier said in an interview with NeuroRestore, a Swiss research and treatment center that works to restore neurological functions. "I was skating, I was freezing. Now ... I have no problem," he added. Interview provided...
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Here’s the Truth Behind the Biggest (and Dumbest) Battery Myths
27Oct By adminNo Comments
Technology

Here’s the Truth Behind the Biggest (and Dumbest) Battery Myths

In lithium-ion batteries, that’s no longer the case. Modern batteries are capable of reading their state no matter their level of charge, and when your device isn’t in use the strain on the battery is almost the same as if it was off altogether, so you wouldn’t be giving the battery much of a break if you turned it off anyway.Batteries perform worse when they’re coldFalse (mostly)Actually, the opposite is true. “Using your battery in cool temperatures and keeping your battery cool is much better for battery life,” says Griffith. Exposing your battery to high temperatures is a much more likely way to end up reducing its overall life. “You don’t want your battery to be hot. You don’t want it to overheat when it’s charging, you don’t want to leave it in the sun or in your car.”But why do bat...
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The Mystery of Florida’s Flamingos
26Oct By adminNo Comments
Entertainment

The Mystery of Florida’s Flamingos

Two months ago, in the aftermath of Hurricane Idalia, Anna Yu, a park ranger in western Florida, heard a rumor from a local birder: for the first time in years, somebody had spotted a flamingo near Fort De Soto Park, where she works. When Yu returned to the park, which encompasses more than a thousand acres of islands, she cleared debris and took stock of what did and didn’t flood. In her three years as a park ranger, she’d seen storms collect weird things in their wake, but she’d never seen a flamingo. Then her radio crackled with the voice of another ranger. “A flamingo just flew over North Beach,” he said.Yu drove her truck down a service road and walked out onto North Beach. There, in the distance, she saw a pink spray of feathers against the backdrop of a blue lagoon. Five flamingos ...
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