December 12, 20222 yr Quote Two-million-year-old DNA from northern Greenland has revealed that the region was once home to mastodons, lemmings and geese, offering unprecedented insights into how climate change can shape ecosystems. The breakthrough in ancient DNA analysis pushes back the DNA record by 1m years to a time when the Arctic region was 11-19C warmer than the present day. The analysis reveals that the northern peninsula of Greenland, now a polar desert, once featured boreal forests of poplar and birch trees teeming with wildlife. The work offers clues to how species might adapt, or be genetically engineered, to survive the threat of rapid global heating. Prof Eske Willerslev of the University of Cambridge and the University of Copenhagen, said: "A new chapter spanning 1m extra years of history has finally been opened and for the first time we can look directly at the DNA of a past ecosystem that far back in time.”
December 14, 20222 yr Boom! Watch an inflatable space station module explode on video https://www.space.com/sierra-space-life-habitat-explosion-test Quote Sierra Space deliberately exploded a small prototype for an inflatable astronaut habitat to get ready for spaceflight. The company conducted what it calls the "ultimate burst pressure test" (UBP) as it progresses along the long road to helping develop a private replacement to the International Space Station (ISS). The inflatable module, called Large Integrated Flexible Environment, or LIFE, will form part of the larger Orbital Reef space station led by Blue Origin. NASA seeks to replace the aging ISS in the 2030s with industry-led private stations, and Orbital Reef is among them. The recent test was the second in 2022 to explode a Sierra Space module prototype for Orbital Reef, following a similar procedure in July. Simply put, by testing a smaller prototype of the module to its literal limit, engineers can make spaceflight safer for future astronauts. I'm a fan of this idea.
December 16, 20222 yr 47 minutes ago, Toastrel said: Positively Badass!!! Oh, sure, what happens when we run out of waves?!??
December 16, 20222 yr 1 minute ago, JohnSnowsHair said: Oh, sure, what happens when we run out of waves?!?? ???
December 16, 20222 yr 9 minutes ago, JohnSnowsHair said: Oh, sure, what happens when we run out of waves?!?? Damn that Joe Biden!
December 17, 20222 yr Author LINK Quote Aviation pioneers Orville and Wilbur Wright succeeded in achieving the first powered, sustained and controlled airplane flight on the Outer Banks on Dec. 17, 1903. The National Park Service will celebrate the anniversary of that milestone Saturday with free admission and a commemorative flyover at the Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kill Devil Hills. A day full of aviation activities will follow the 10:35 a.m. flyover honoring the brother’s first flight at that very spot. Admission to the memorial is free Saturday. Today, the Wright’s Flyer is on exhibit in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. and is among the Smithsonian’s most popular displays. Visitors are impressed with the unpretentiousness of the simple machine that launched the era of flight. North Carolina continues to proudly boast of the brothers’ historic accomplishment on state license plates, declaring the Tar Heel State as "First in Flight.” Orville and Wilbur Wright were both independent theorists who had a profound faith in their abilities. They had unwavering belief in the soundness of their judgment and the fortitude to persist in tackling adversity. These fathers of flight definitely had the "Wright stuff.” Where others had failed, the Wright brothers — two bicycle shop owners from Dayton, Ohio — succeeded. The Wrights studied the research and experiments of other aeronautical enthusiasts and experimented with kites and gliders. They hypothesized that a successful aircraft would feature three elements — a set of lifting surfaces, a system for controlling and balancing the airplane, and a mechanism for propulsion. They initially focused their attention on creating a method for maintaining balance and control because they regarded that as potentially the most difficult problem to resolve. While the flow of air across the wings of the Wright glider provided the necessary lift, the Wrights designed a system to create balance and control of the aircraft by twisting — warping — the wing structure in precise ways using a system of interlinked lightweight wire cables. They also decided to incorporate the controls of a moveable rudder into the hip harness that regulated the wing warping. They made more than 1,000 test flights with their 1902 glider. Glider flights of five hundred feet were not unusual. The Wrights had solved the problem of flight and had gained experience and the skill to fly. They could rise and dive, circle and glide, and land with confidence. The next step was propelling their "perfected” airframe. They needed a lightweight motor. For the engine of their Flyer, Orville and Wilbur turned to Charles Taylor, a brilliant mechanic who ran their bicycle shop in Dayton. Taylor produced a four-cylinder gasoline motor with a lightweight aluminum block and cast-iron cylinders and piston rings. It weighed 152 pounds and generated 12 horsepower. Their aircraft still needed two propellers. Creating air propellers proved to be a real challenge. The Wrights were compelled to solve the propeller enigma themselves — the variable physics of speed, thrust, angle, and the medium in which they act. "Our minds,” said Orville Wright, "became so obsessed with it that we could do little other work.” Each propeller was eight and a half feet in diameter. They were made of laminated spruce and shaped by hand. They were distinct from any other propellers ever constructed before. Throughout the summer of 1903, the Wright brothers and mechanic/machinist Charles Taylor worked at their shop on West Third Street in Dayton to see that every part and component of their latest flying machine was right. The Wright 1903 Flyer was never completely assembled in Dayton. Their shop was too small to accommodate the complete aircraft. Packing the aircraft pieces for shipment to Kitty Hawk, now Kill Devil Hills, was a major undertaking. Extreme care had to be taken to prevent damage during transit. The motor, airframe, and parts of the airplane weighed 675 pounds. By mid-September their aircraft was crated and loaded on a train. Throughout October and early November, the Wrights — and their assistants — worked on assembling the new flyer. An engine misfiring tore the propeller shafts loose and twisted them badly. Replacement shafts made of heavier tubing also failed. Orville — the better mechanic - packed his bag and returned to Dayton to resolve the problem. Wilbur remained behind at Kitty Hawk. Orville returned to Kitty Hawk on Dec. 11 and spent the afternoon with Wilbur unpacking the replacement parts from Dayton. By Dec. 14, all the repairs were completed and the brothers were ready. They flipped a coin to determine who would fly the aircraft first. Wilbur won the toss. The Wright Flyer was mounted on skids — not wheels — and it was launched on a metal-covered wooden track. Wilbur made an error in judgment, and the flying machine crashed in the sand a hundred feet from the end of the track. The damage was minor. The repairs took two days. On Thursday morning — Dec. 17 - everything was again ready to go. Orville would be the pilot for the initial attempt at flight on this day — at precisely 10:35 a.m. Orville slipped the tether restraining the flyer and the machine slowly moved forward. At the end of the track, the aircraft lifted into the air and struck the sand after flying 120 feet. Orville’s historic first flight took only 12 seconds. Their machine was hauled back to the starting point. The flight crew took a short break to warm up in the camp building. By around 11 a.m., Wilbur took his turn. He flew like a bird for 175 feet. Orville flew again for 200 feet. Finally, Wilbur flew a distance of 852 feet in 59 seconds. A sudden gust of wind caught the Wright Flyer and tossed it along the sand. The airplane blew across the beach, rolling over and over. The flyer was nearly a total wreck. All the wing ribs were broken and the upright posts were shattered. The chain guides were twisted. There was absolutely no possibility of a follow up flight. After four years and against the odds, the Wright brothers had taught themselves — and mankind — how to fly. On May 30, 1899, Wilbur Wright wrote a letter to the Smithsonian Institution requesting published materials on aeronautics. The Smithsonian mailed him a list of publications and four pamphlets. "I am an enthusiast, but not a crank in the sense that I have some pet theories as to the proper construction of a flying machine,” wrote Wilbur Wright. "I wish to avail myself of all that is already known, and then if possible add my mite to help the future worker who will attain final success.” Ironically, Samuel Langley, the secretary of the Smithsonian, had spent 18 years attempting to be the first to launch an airplane. Langley had developed unmanned aerodromes and persuaded the Smithsonian and the War Department to subsidize his research with $50,000 from each. The Wright brothers were the first to fly with an aircraft that cost about $1,000.
December 21, 20222 yr I’m sure the Royal Astronomical Society doesn’t have any skeletons in their closet. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-11562001/Royal-Astronomical-Society-CANCELS-NASAs-James-Webb-Space-Telescope.html
December 22, 20222 yr Author LINK Quote NASA’s Mars rover, Perseverance, deposited its first sample of rocks on the Red Planet’s surface Wednesday for an eventual return to Earth. The rover placed a titanium tube containing the rock sample as part of NASA’s Mars Sample Return campaign. The deposit is one of more than a dozen tubes that will be placed at the location – dubbed "Three Forks" – over the next two months. Perseverance has been taking duplicate samples from rock targets the mission selects, NASA said. The rover will later deliver samples to a robotic lander that will use a robotic arm to place the samples in a containment capsule aboard a small rocket. The rock will blast off into Mars’ orbit and deliver the samples to another spacecraft that will return the samples to Earth. The sample, NASA says, will serve as a backup if the rover can’t deliver its sample. In that scenario, Sample Recovery Helicopters will be deployed to finish the job. "Seeing our first sample on the ground is a great capstone to our prime mission period, which ends on Jan. 6," Rick Welch, Perseverance’s deputy project manager at JPL, said in a statement. "It’s a nice alignment that, just as we’re starting our cache, we’re also closing this first chapter of the mission."
December 25, 20222 yr On 12/22/2022 at 5:13 PM, Mlodj said: Rita’s goes a long way to harvest their crops.
December 28, 20222 yr On 12/24/2022 at 9:48 PM, RPeeteRules said: Rita’s goes a long way to harvest their crops.
December 28, 20222 yr Soon the North Atlantic Current will reach a critical desalinization point. What’s going on with the Greenland ice sheet? It's losing ice faster than forecast and now irreversibly committed to at least 10 inches of sea level rise Alun Hubbard, Professor of Glaciology, Arctic Five Chair, University of Tromsø Wed, December 28, 2022 at 11:03 AM EST A turbulent melt-river pours a million tons of water a day into a moulin, where it flows down through the ice to ultimately reach the ocean. Ted Giffords I’m standing at the edge of the Greenland ice sheet, mesmerized by a mind-blowing scene of natural destruction. A milewide section of glacier front has fractured and is collapsing into the ocean, calving an immense iceberg. Seracs, giant columns of ice the height of three-story houses, are being tossed around like dice. And the previously submerged portion of this immense block of glacier ice just breached the ocean – a frothing maelstrom flinging ice cubes of several tons high into the air. The resulting tsunami inundates all in its path as it radiates from the glacier’s calving front. Fortunately, I’m watching from a clifftop a couple of miles away. But even here, I can feel the seismic shocks through the ground. A fast-flowing outlet glacier calves a ‘megaberg’ into Greenland’s Uummannaq Fjord. Alun Hubbard Despite the spectacle, I’m keenly aware that this spells yet more unwelcome news for the world’s low-lying coastlines. As a field glaciologist, I’ve worked on ice sheets for more than 30 years. In that time, I have witnessed some gobsmacking changes. The past few years in particular have been unnerving for the sheer rate and magnitude of change underway. My revered textbooks taught me that ice sheets respond over millennial time scales, but that’s not what we’re seeing today. A study published Aug. 29, 2022, demonstrates – for the first time – that Greenland’s ice sheet is now so out of balance with prevailing Arctic climate that it no longer can sustain its current size. It is irreversibly committed to retreat by at least 59,000 square kilometers (22,780 square miles), an area considerably larger than Denmark, Greenland’s protectorate state. Even if all the greenhouse gas emissions driving global warming ceased today, we find that Greenland’s ice loss under current temperatures will raise global sea level by at least 10.8 inches (27.4 centimeters). That’s more than current models forecast, and it’s a highly conservative estimate. If every year were like 2012, when Greenland experienced a heat wave, that irreversible commitment to sea level rise would triple. That’s an ominous portent given that these are climate conditions we have already seen, not a hypothetical future scenario. Our study takes a completely new approach – it is based on observations and glaciological theory rather than sophisticated numerical models. The current generation of coupled climate and ice sheet models used to forecast future sea level rise fail to capture the emerging processes that we see amplifying Greenland’s ice loss.
December 28, 20222 yr On 12/8/2022 at 6:19 AM, Toastrel said: I have them on DVD, because they are truly excellent. Worth a listen/read if you're a fan of the inimitable James Burke (an Irishman, but tolerable). https://youarenotsosmart.com/2014/03/18/yanss-podcast-020-james-burke-and-matt-novak-ponder-the-future-and-why-we-are-terrible-at-predicting-it/ great podcast and book series, btw.
December 29, 20222 yr Author LINK Quote The solar system is giving a "grand tour" Wednesday night when all planets will be visible almost at the same time. Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and the moon will be visible Wednesday night into Thursday. Most can be seen with the naked eye by looking to the southwest throughout the night. Mercury will be the smallest and hardest to see. Meanwhile, the farthest planets, Uranus and Neptune, will require some visual aid to see. The planets should be visible with a telescope or some binoculars. A clear sky is the only requirement to view the solar system – minus Earth – on display.
January 3, 20232 yr https://www.bmj.com/content/379/bmj-2022-072833 Quote Quantifying the benefits of inefficient walking: Monty Python inspired laboratory based experimental study
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