Science and Technology Thread

[dodint]

That doesn't 'expand the Cradle', it means their understanding of it has changed and no longer has a meaningful description at this point.

[Viva la Ben]

https://twitter.com/nasa/status/876824330444959744

[columbia]

First Object Teleported from Earth to Orbit
Researchers in China have teleported a photon from the ground to a satellite orbiting more than 500 kilometers above.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/6082 ... set=608245

[Willie Kool]

It is, I promise, worse than you think. If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible, even within the lifetime of a teenager today. And yet the swelling seas — and the cities they will drown — have so dominated the picture of global warming, and so overwhelmed our capacity for climate panic, that they have occluded our perception of other threats, many much closer at hand. Rising oceans are bad, in fact very bad; but fleeing the coastline will not be enough.

Indeed, absent a significant adjustment to how billions of humans conduct their lives, parts of the Earth will likely become close to uninhabitable, and other parts horrifically inhospitable, as soon as the end of this century.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/20 ... umans.html

[Silentom]

First Object Teleported from Earth to Orbit
Researchers in China have teleported a photon from the ground to a satellite orbiting more than 500 kilometers above.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/6082 ... set=608245

Beam me up, Scotty.

[NTP66]

Careful what you wish for.

[Silentom]

I posted a gif of that yesterday.

[NTP66]

Arguably my favorite comedy of all time.

[Gaucho]

Deepest Dive Ever Under Antarctica Reveals a Shockingly Vibrant World

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magaz ... -penguins/

[LITT]

this picture cracked me up

[CBear3]

Hello, is it me you're looking for?

[Silentom]

"Coast is clear, guys."

[NTP66]

He's probably taking a dump, and doesn't approve of being interrupted.

[columbia]

The Innovator Gap
The world’s most potent technologists are stranded in today’s innovation ecosystem.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/6080 ... vator-gap/

[count2infinity]

https://www.axios.com/study-knowing-mor ... 28872.html

If someone is already pre-disposed to disbelieve scientific conclusions around issues like human evolution, climate change, stem cell research or the Big Bang theory because of their religious or political views, learning more about the subject actually increases their disbelief, a new study finds.

...

Carnegie Mellon social scientists looked at Americans' beliefs around six potentially controversial issues: stem cell research, the Big Bang theory, nanotechnology, GMOs, climate change and evolution. The found people's beliefs about topics associated with their religious and political views become increasingly polarized with more education (measured by markers like the number of years in school, highest degrees earned, aptitude on general science facts or the number of science classes taken). Baruch Fischhoff from CMU said:

"These are troubling correlations. We can only speculate about the underlying causes. One possibility is that people with more education are more likely to know what they are supposed to say, on these polarized issues, in order to express their identity. Another possibility is that they have more confidence in their ability to argue their case."

One bright spot for science literacy advocates: If someone is already pre-disposed to trust the peer-reviewed science process and scientists, they're likely to believe what they say and find in all of these areas.

[columbia]

https://www.axios.com/study-knowing-mor ... 28872.html

If someone is already pre-disposed to disbelieve scientific conclusions around issues like human evolution, climate change, stem cell research or the Big Bang theory because of their religious or political views, learning more about the subject actually increases their disbelief, a new study finds.

...

Carnegie Mellon social scientists looked at Americans' beliefs around six potentially controversial issues: stem cell research, the Big Bang theory, nanotechnology, GMOs, climate change and evolution. The found people's beliefs about topics associated with their religious and political views become increasingly polarized with more education (measured by markers like the number of years in school, highest degrees earned, aptitude on general science facts or the number of science classes taken). Baruch Fischhoff from CMU said:

"These are troubling correlations. We can only speculate about the underlying causes. One possibility is that people with more education are more likely to know what they are supposed to say, on these polarized issues, in order to express their identity. Another possibility is that they have more confidence in their ability to argue their case."

One bright spot for science literacy advocates: If someone is already pre-disposed to trust the peer-reviewed science process and scientists, they're likely to believe what they say and find in all of these areas.

He's a smart guy. I took a decision processes & risk analysis (or something like that) class with him.

[Lemon Berry Lobster]

Was kind of hoping that article would be longer.

[count2infinity]

I can e-mail you a PDF of the study if you'd like. Just PM me your e-mail address.

[tifosi77]

Cassini: The dying of the light

Cassini is no more. At 10:31 according to its own clock, its thrusters could no longer hold its radio antenna pointed at Earth, and it turned away. A minute later, it vaporized in Saturn’s atmosphere. Its atoms are part of Saturn now – the lighter ones high in the atmosphere, the heavier ones (particularly the iridium-clad plutonium dioxide pellets that were, yesterday, in the center of its nuclear power source) likely descended much deeper before melting.

The news reached Earth, as predicted, at 4:55 in the morning, local Pasadena time. The world watched two graphs of radar signals, one from the X-band radio, one from the longer-wavelength S-band. The X-band signal dropped out first, at 11:55:39 UTC, and 11:55:46 for S-band. The S-band signal flatlined and then popped back up briefly, as Cassini’s antenna rotated off of Earth-point, bringing a side band briefly into view from the Deep Space Network. In all, the mission lasted about 30 seconds longer than predicted. It’s amazing to think that, across all that distance, into an atmosphere that had never been explored before, the engineers predicted the end that precisely. I’m not sure whether that extra 30 seconds was within the noise level of their predictions, or if it was a true overperformance of the spacecraft, or of the Deep Space Network’s ability to maintain lock on an off-pointed spacecraft. Probably a little of everything. Everyone was full of praise for the “perfect” performance of the spacecraft, down to the very end.

It was transmitting data all the way down. According to project manager Earl Maize, they are pretty sure the last data packet was from the magnetometer instrument. I talked with magnetometer team leader Michelle Dougherty about these last bits of data. She said it will be three to six months before they are able to report any results, but she’s hopeful they’ll finally be able to find an angular separation between the spin axis and the magnetic pole. She said that the data they have already tells them that angle is less than 0.06 degrees; with the final-plunge data, they’ll be able to find a separation as small as 0.015 degrees.

[NTP66]

I look forward to seeing a compilation of all images that it took. The ones that I have already seen were stunning.

[columbia]

Cassini was more dependable than Beau Bennett.

[count2infinity]

A component of Cassini came from my company. It's pretty neat to think we were a part of that.

[dodint]

Part of my [parents] tax dollars funded it. I didn't start paying taxes until a year after it launched.

[CBear3]

Part of my [parents] tax dollars funded it. I didn't start paying taxes until a year after it launched.

You funded the guys and gals who were still directing it though.

[tifosi77]

We went to a speaking engagement of Bill Nye last weekend. (Regardless of what you think of the guy, it was a hoot.) He and the moderator had an exchange where they said Cassini was the possibly the most successful interplanetary mission in history, and the benefits we're going to reap from the data will stretch for decades.