Cool Science thread

[mecc69]

Neat article on issues NASA is having while they build some of the SLS tank components using "self-reacting friction stir welding".


https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2017...ld-pin-change/

[Dantheman]

The research coming out about how the body regulates salt balance is fascinating.

mobile.nytimes.com/2017/05/08/health/salt-health-effects.html

[iceman]

The research coming out about how the body regulates salt balance is fascinating.

mobile.nytimes.com/2017/05/08/health/salt-health-effects.html

I saw that and thought of this:



It turns out that no, no they weren't.

[Dantheman]

It turns out that no, no they weren't.

Not quite. They do, but apparently it has nothing to do with osmotic balance.

[Dantheman]

Eat your boogers, kids.

http://www.menshealth.com/health/eat...s-good-for-you

[Supermoon]

This sort of fits here. I got all three sample questions right. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/15/u...mpetition.html

[NoPostholio]

NYT hitting it out of the park again with multimedia look at the fakeness of climate change. Maybe this can wake people up -

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/....app.html?_r=0

[SkiCougar]

Cool video showing the birth of the solar system, about 6:30 minutes long.

http://ritholtz.com/2017/05/birth-solar-system/

[Dantheman]

Construction has started on the Extremely Large Telescope in Chile. It will feature a 39-meter primary mirror, plus a groundbreaking spectrograph and adaptive optics capabilities. The discoveries this thing could make are mind boggling. Hubble is positively quaint in comparison.
http://www.scienceworldreport.com/ar...onstructed.htm

Vancomycin, the "antibiotic of last resort," has been re-engineered to be 1,000 time stronger and more resistance-resistant.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/30/health...er-antibiotic/

[Game Over]

I think this is cool. Engine animations

http://www.animatedengines.com

[Dantheman]

LIGO has picked up another black hole merger. The wave pattern also suggests they did not originate as a binary system.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/s...nal-waves.html

[Dantheman]

Earliest evidence of Homo sapiens pushed back 100,000 years
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/07/s...occo.html?_r=0

[Dantheman]

Holy shit, CERN is going to build another collider that will be triple the size of the LHC: https://www.sciencealert.com/work-is...-s-replacement

It is sad as hell that 24 years after the Superconducting Super Collider was cancelled, there are still no plans for a super collider in the US. The SSC would have been as big and powerful as this thing is planned to be, and would be operating right fucking now

[NoPostholio]

Fkn euros - still banking on science being more than a fad

[Dantheman]

The SSC could have been built for the cost of a handful of B2 bombers, but hey, what possible value could be gained by probing the fundamental structure of the universe....

The worst part is anti-science Republicans aren't even to blame, the effort to kill the SSC was spearheaded by a Democrat.

[iceman]

That guy must've been vaccinated as a child.

[mcski]

The SSC could have been built for the cost of a handful of B2 bombers, but hey, what possible value could be gained by probing the fundamental structure of the universe....

The worst part is anti-science Republicans aren't even to blame, the effort to kill the SSC was spearheaded by a Democrat.

I use to sell IT to the HPC / Supercomputing crowd. It was astonishing the fall out in funding for all kinds of awesome science that happened when the US dropped the ball on Supercolliders. I didn't realize all the negative consequences and funding drying up as a consequence of that decision prior to that. One more step in ceding future industry innovation to other countries.

[Viva]

Since the topic of vaccines has proven so popular of late, here's the latest out of Kim Janda's lab- vaccine against heroin. I had worked with Kim years ago when I was at Scripps (on the business side, not science) on his vaccines targeting coccain, nicotine, ghrelin (a hormone involved in energy homeostasis), HRSV, and one or two others I forget. k00l work and a fun guy to work with.

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/...610-story.html

[neufox47]

Since the topic of vaccines has proven so popular of late, here's the latest out of Kim Janda's lab- vaccine against heroin. I had worked with Kim years ago when I was at Scripps (on the business side, not science) on his vaccines targeting coccain, nicotine, ghrelin (a hormone involved in energy homeostasis), HRSV, and one or two others I forget. k00l work and a fun guy to work with.

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/...610-story.html

That's amazing. Crazy how it can target only heroin.

[From_the_NEK]

The SSC could have been built for the cost of a handful of B2 bombers, but hey, what possible value could be gained by probing the fundamental structure of the universe....

The worst part is anti-science Republicans aren't even to blame, the effort to kill the SSC was spearheaded by a Democrat.

Was that democrat afraid the SSC was going to open up a rift with a different dimension letting in huge beasts that were designed to exterminate humans?

[Supermoon]

Unfortunately is was probably something way less cool, like the sub-standard collider that already existed was in that person's district and was trying to protect it.

[NoPostholio]

China Shatters “Spooky Action at a Distance” Record, Preps for Quantum Internet
Results from the Micius satellite test quantum entanglement, pointing the way toward hack-proof global communications—and a new space race

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...ntum-internet/

In a landmark study, a team of Chinese scientists using an experimental satellite has tested quantum entanglement over unprecedented distances, beaming entangled pairs of photons to three ground stations across China—each separated by more than 1,000 kilometers. The test verifies a mysterious and long-held tenet of quantum theory, and firmly establishes China as the frontrunner in a burgeoning “quantum space race” to create a secure, quantum-based global communications network—that is, a potentially unhackable “quantum internet” that would be of immense geopolitical importance. The findings were published Thursday in Science.

[Norseman]

Woah. That's a big leap, fuck yeah.

[Dantheman]

Unfortunately is was probably something way less cool, like the sub-standard collider that already existed was in that person's district and was trying to protect it.

Dumber than that even. Just short-sighted dipshits with a hard-on for austerity in the wake of the collapse of the USSR:

"The SSC had seen the stretch of three presidencies, from Reagan, its inceptive advocate, to Bush Sr. to the less-enthusiastic Clinton. Plus the Congress that emerged from the ‘93 election had a very large contingent of freshman, many of whom shared a hip sense of fiscal austerity. The super collider, in contrast to majestic projects like the space shuttle missions or the contemporary International Space Station, couldn’t readily offer any consequences of its science. You can see images from a space station, see a rocket propel from the Earth. You cannot see a beam of protons collide, nor the particles which that collision reveals. Schwitters recalls this period, saying that the SSC became a “really great program that was unexplainable to the politician or common person. It made it easy to jettison.”

In roughly a year’s time, Schwitters had watched a merrily progressing SSC project shift into one that needed adamant and constant defending before Congress and the Senate. He referred to this period from ’92 to ’93 as a “firestorm,” or “maelstrom.” In 1993 he told the New York Times, “We should be devoting ourselves to completing this machine as rapidly and as cheaply as possible, and getting on with real science. Instead, our time and energy are being sapped by bureaucrats and politicians. The SSC is becoming a victim of the revenge of the C students.”"

http://www.texasmonthly.com/articles...uper-collider/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Slattery

China Shatters “Spooky Action at a Distance” Record, Preps for Quantum Internet
Results from the Micius satellite test quantum entanglement, pointing the way toward hack-proof global communications—and a new space race

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...ntum-internet/

In a landmark study, a team of Chinese scientists using an experimental satellite has tested quantum entanglement over unprecedented distances, beaming entangled pairs of photons to three ground stations across China—each separated by more than 1,000 kilometers. The test verifies a mysterious and long-held tenet of quantum theory, and firmly establishes China as the frontrunner in a burgeoning “quantum space race” to create a secure, quantum-based global communications network—that is, a potentially unhackable “quantum internet” that would be of immense geopolitical importance. The findings were published Thursday in Science.

Damn.

[NoPostholio]

We still got them on coal