Science News

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District heating using a sand battery as storage for peak demand https://interestingengineering.com/energy/sand-battery-polar-night-energy “The net result: Pornainen fulfilled all of its municipal climate targets with a single installation. Oil use dropped 100 percent, emissions fell 70 percent, and woodchip combustion was cut by 60 percent. According to the Mayor of the Municipality of Pornainen, Antti Kuusela, the municipality now heats all its public buildings, including a new sports arena opening in September 2026, entirely through this district heating network.”

“some of the 12,000 images are nearly identical to each other or even the same file just in a different size. Some aren’t even that impressive; blurry or overexposed. But there are also some unseen gems in there. PetaPixel has picked out some of the best ones.” https://petapixel.com/2026/05/04/nasa-releases-thousands-of-unseen-artemis-ii-photos/

“Researchers in the UK studied how European herring gulls (Larus argentatus) in the city reacted to various types of takeout boxes. The gulls were substantially less likely to approach or peck at boxes that had googly eyes attached to them, they found. Though not every bird was deterred, the simple design strategy could help ease human-gull conflict” https://gizmodo.com/this-ridiculously-simple-trick-might-stop-gulls-from-nabbing-your-lunch-2000742276 You’d think that lunch containers might have evolved this trait on their own, so it must not confer a reproductive advantage…

“The NIST team replicated the original BIPM experiment, building a torsion balance with eight metal cylinders: four on a rotating carousel and four smaller masses inside the carousel, sitting on a suspended disk held by a thin ribbon of copper-beryllium. The torsion balance and ribbon would twist when the outer masses attracted the inner ones, and physicists measured Big G by tracking the cylinder’s rotation and the resulting gravitational torque. They also performed a second set of measurements by applying a voltage to electrodes beside the inner masses. This twisted the wire in the opposite direction to the gravitational torque, and the voltage magnitude provided anothe…

In 1964 a British SciFi author Eric Frank Russell (1905-1978) wrote a novel “With A Strange Device” (aka “The Mind Warpers”) which now seems to have a certain prescient relevance to concerns raised recently in the highest circles of US government about an alarming number of American scientists working on classified projects who have inexplicably gone missing, or who have died in unexplained circumstances. https://edition.cnn.com/2026/04/21/us/deaths-disappearances-scientists-investigation A separate investigation by the Republican House Oversight Committee into the same questions was announced on Monday. In Eric Frank Russell’s novel “With A Strange Device” inexplicab…

“For a decade or so, a major threat to your laptop wasn’t a virus, malware, or hacking — it was Janet Jackson’s hit song, “Rhythm Nation.” … somehow, playing back “Rhythm Nation” over a laptop’s speakers would crash the laptop. In fact, it could crash nearby laptops as well.” https://www.pcworld.com/article/2767927/a-janet-jackson-song-killed-laptops-for-nearly-a-decade.html

“By the end of the year, wind and solar energy combined are projected to account for about half of China’s total installed power capacity, while coal’s share falls to around one-third, according to the China Electricity Council.” Solar alone set to overtake next year. https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/china-solar-power-capacity-coal-first-time-b2912940.html This, amid other reports of places where renewables are occasionally accounting for all generated electricity. (Makes the US position all the more painful, though the courts have reinstated some renewables projects)

Microbiologist Brantley Hall of the University of Maryland in College Park and colleagues study the metabolism of gut microbes. They tried unsuccessfully to measure hydrogen production from gut microbes with a sensor in an oxygen-free chamber. Frustrated, “we took the sensor out of the chamber, and we were like, ‘Screw it. We’re going to try to measure a fart.’” So Hall stuck the device down his own pants and let rip. “And the signal was enormous.” https://www.sciencenews.org/article/smart-underwear-human-fart-frequency

A report on using silica glass on concrete, wood and perhaps other products --> https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/shows/2091066/ Enjoy.-

Engineered Yeast provides rare but essential pollen sterols for honeybees

Unsurprisingly, D-K appears to happen there, because why wouldn’t it? https://www.psypost.org/people-with-the-least-political-knowledge-tend-to-be-the-most-overconfident-in-their-grasp-of-facts/ “New research published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied suggests that people often overestimate their understanding of political facts. This tendency to be overconfident appears most common among individuals who actually know the least about politics and those who lean conservative. The findings provide evidence that psychological traits, like a desire for quick and definitive answers, help explain why some voters struggle to accurately judge their own political…

"Results show that, compared with the non-autistic population, as represented by standardized norms ... and typically developing (TD) control groups ..., individuals with ASD exhibit significantly lower math scores ... and greater variability." https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-02-closer-mathematical-abilities-autistic-people.html

“This month could be the best time to spot the northern lights for nearly a decade, as the combination of the "equinox effect" and supercharged solar activity will make auroras more likely. However, precisely where and when they will appear is still up in the air.” https://www.livescience.com/space/the-sun/march-could-be-the-best-month-for-the-northern-lights-for-nearly-a-decade-if-the-sun-stays-active I had not previously heard of the equinox effect (aka Russell–McPherron effect, as I learned) but it makes sense that there would be times where the alignment of the earth’s field made it easier for the solar wind to enter the atmosphere https://www.northernshotstours.com/…

Top quark pairing observed. https://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/CONFNOTES/ATLAS-CONF-2025-008/ Relevant arxiv copy of first linked article of above news article https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.11780

The newer, better vaccine does an even better job https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/02/could-a-vaccine-prevent-dementia-shingles-shot-data-only-getting-stronger/ “A study published in Nature Communications this month by researchers in California went further. They compared dementia rates among nearly 66,000 people who received the Shingrix vaccine and over 260,000 unvaccinated matched controls. The researchers found that the vaccinated group had a 51 percent lower risk of dementia compared to the unvaccinated controls.”

ScienceDailySchrödinger’s color theory finally completed after 100 yearsA century after Erwin Schrödinger sketched out a bold vision for how we perceive color, scientists have finally filled in the missing pieces. A Los Alamos team used advanced geometry to show that hue,So if we have software that recognizes colour, does this mean that software would need updating to allow for any changes to ideas on how we perceive colour?

“with the new upgrade, called Mars Global Localization, Perseverance can match its own panoramic imagery to orbital terrain maps onboard, calculate its precise position and continue along its planned route without waiting for Earth-based confirmation. An onboard algorithm performs the comparison in about two minutes and can pinpoint the rover's location to within roughly 10 inches (25 centimeters), all without assistance from human planners” https://www.space.com/space-exploration/mars-rovers/nasas-perseverance-rover-now-has-its-own-gps-on-mars-weve-given-the-rover-a-new-ability

Human brain could stay conscious 'hours after death'New research in the US has suggested the body's major functions experience a more steady decline after death Data has revealed that some people may be alert to their surroundings despite being declared biologically dead, long after the heart has stopped pumping blood. According to scientists, the body shows that biological and neural functions "steadily decline from minutes to hours," rather than "ceasing abruptly." Researcher Anna Fowler came up with the findings suggested the decrease of brain activity lasts hours, rather than seconds as previously believed. Writing in her study, she added: "Consciousness may not vanis…

AP NewsTesla loses title as world's biggest electric vehicle mak...Tesla lost its crown as the world’s bestselling electric vehicle maker on Friday as a customer revolt over Elon Musk’s right-wing politics, expiring U.S. tax breaks to buyers and stiff overseas compet And industry leadership in EVs requires constant technical innovation (e.g. SS batteries), along with having at least one line producing simple bare bones sedans affordable to Millennials in the middle class. Fancy sporty cars are fun, help reduce testicular shrinkage in midlife males, and help establish brand visibility, but you can't depend on them or on dumpster-trucks, or on theatrical drug induced looni…

This is cool, because among the hurdles for a Th-229 clock is the difficulty in generating enough light for the transition. “For most nuclear transitions, the energy difference between the two states lies in the kilo-electron-volt to mega-electron-volt range. Consequently, such transitions are inaccessible to today’s high-precision lasers, which can deliver photons of typically a few electron volts in energy. A long-known exception is the transition between the ground state and first excited state of thorium-229 nuclei. Indirect measurements over the past 50 years have gradually pinned down that transition’s energy difference to only about 8.4 eV. As a result, this transi…

“Astronomers have watched a dying star fail to explode as a supernova, instead collapsing into a black hole. The remarkable sighting is the most complete observational record ever made of a star's transformation into a black hole, allowing astronomers to construct a comprehensive physical picture of the process. … The discovery will help explain why some massive stars turn into black holes when they die, while others don't.” https://phys.org/news/2026-02-supernova-clearest-view-star-collapsing.html

“The new study has been published today in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS). It challenges the leading theory that Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), a proposed black hole at the heart of our galaxy, is responsible for the observed orbits of a group of stars, known as the S-stars, which whip around at tremendous speeds of up to a few thousand kilometres per second. The international team of researchers have instead put forward an alternative idea – that a specific type of dark matter made up of fermions, or light subatomic particles, can create a unique cosmic structure that also fits with what we know about the Milky Way's core.” https://ras.ac.uk/news-an…

Related to the recent solar and wind capacity news, but a notable contribution from a decline in cement production “growth in energy storage capacity and clean-power output topped the increases in peak and total electricity demand, respectively” https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-co2-emissions-have-now-been-flat-or-falling-for-21-months/