Science News

A report on research from the Royal Vetinary College posted in The Big Issue 15-21 july 2024, page 5

A novel method of calculating the value of Pi has been found by an Indian physicist Aninda Sinha, Professor at the Centre for High Energy Physics (CHEP) - Indian Institute of Science, and co-author Arnab Saha, a post-doc assistant - published in Physical Review Letters https://www.iisc.ac.in/events/iisc-physicists-find-a-new-way-to-represent-pi/ The new method was stumbled upon by chance while the researchers were investigating how string theory can be used to explain certain physical phenomena: There are several well known methods of calculating Pi by using infinite series, notably the Wallis product formula first published by John Wallis in 1656, and t…

MOND vs. dark matter: Research suggests that rotation curves of galaxies stay flat indefinitely June 17 2024 The primary technique Mistele used in his research, gravitational lensing, is a phenomenon predicted by Einstein’s theory of general relativity. As part of the research, Mistele plotted out what’s called Tully–Fisher relation on a chart to highlight the empirical relationship between the visible mass of a galaxy and its rotation speed. In a discovery that challenges the conventional understanding of cosmology, scientists at Case Western Reserve University have unearthed new evidence that could reshape our perception of the cosmos. Tobias Mistele, a post-doctor…

In the news today major breakthrough of faster than light travel. This changes every thing. Quantum Tunnels Show How Particles Can Break the Speed of Light Recent experiments show that particles should be able to go faster than light when they quantum mechanically “tunnel” through walls. https://www.quantamagazine.org/quantum-tunnel-shows-particles-can-break-the-speed-of-light-20201020/ “Quantum tunneling” shows how profoundly particles such as electrons differ from bigger things. Throw a ball at the wall and it bounces backward; let it roll to the bottom of a valley and it stays there. But a particle will occasiona…

As the title says, the WHO has considered bird flu a zoonotic pandemic. https://odishabytes.com/who-sounds-alarm-over-human-cases-of-bird-flu-flags-global-zoonotic-animal-pandemic/ Let us remember that the coronavirus pandemic has not ended, but rather the alert level regarding it was reduced, if I am not mistaken. Now we have a second pandemic, it seems, in about 4 years. Avian flu can affect in many ways, such as affecting food production. But, it has also been mentioned that there is a risk that it could end up being a direct threat to humans.

A new solution to the warp drive problem has been found that does not require negative energy or negative mass has been suggested in this paper by Erik W. Lentz https://arxiv.org/pdf/2201.00652

A marine algae and a nitrogen fixing bacteria have officially teamed up and the bacteria has become a new organelle inside a marine algae. The teaming up of nitrogen fixing bacteria and plants Is not a new (Azolla carolinensis) is one but the bacteria is just in a communal relationship with the plant but this bacteria has actually become an organelle inside the algae cells much like mitochondria or chloroplasts in other cells, this new organelle has been dubbed Nitroplast. https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2024/04/17/scientists-discover-first-nitrogen-fixing-organelle/ I am remembering reading of another animal that has evolved something similar that a…

A group of metazoans known as Loricifera contain at least three species that live their entire lives without oxygen. They depend on mitochondria like organelles called Hydrogenosomes. These organelles allow the organism to produce energy in the absence of oxygen, they live in anoxic sediments. Not considered uniquely evolved from a new organism but actually degenerate mitochondria. . Spinoloricus cinziae was found in 2014.

A mutant virus similar to monkeypox has been detected in the Congo, Africa (called: clade 1b). In fact, it has been classified as a new strain of mpox. Experts believe that it has the potential to become a pandemic. Mpox previously caused a global epidemic, highlighting its virulence capacity. Experts call for quick action to stop the spread of the virus. Let us remember that the majority of deaths from Mpox are children, despite the virus being related to sexual activities. Reference: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/mpox-outbreak-kamituga-democratic-republic-of-congo-africa/

“For the first time since the mid-20th century, over 95 percent of this year’s planned new electric-generating capacity in the United States is zero-carbon.” https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2024/04/11/the-next-phase-of-electricity-decarbonization-planned-power-capacity-is-nearly-all-zero-carbon/

The omnipresent QR (Quick Response) codes found everywhere these days from restaurant menus, to adverts on bus stops, festival passes, or museum exhibits were first invented back in 1994 at a Japanese company called Denso Wave (デンソーウェーブ), a manufacturer of automobile parts based near Nagoya in Japan. Masahiro Hara, the man who invented QR codes was an engineer at Denso Wave who also happened to be a Go player. One day he was playing a game of Go during his lunchbreak when he stumbled on the idea of using the 19 x 19 matrix of a Go board as a new way of encoding the information of the Kanban (カンバン ) system for tracking components and spare parts which is extensively u…

https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/09/world/peter-higgs-physicist-nobel-winner-dies-scn/index.html Physicist Peter Higgs, whose theory of an undetected particle in the universe changed science and was vindicated by a Nobel prize-winning discovery half a century later, has died aged 94, the University of Edinburgh said on Tuesday. The discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 at the CERN research centre near Geneva was widely hailed as the biggest advance in knowledge about the cosmos for over 30 years, and pointed physics towards ideas that were once science fiction. “For me personally it is just the confirmation of something I did 48 years ago, and it is very satisfyi…

Looks like the air might be getting a bit thin for MOND: https://academic.oup.com/mnras/advance-article/doi/10.1093/mnras/stad3393/7342478?login=false

Scientists say they have successfully eliminated HIV from infected cells, using Nobel Prize-winning Crispr gene-editing technology. Working like scissors, but at the molecular level, it cuts DNA so "bad" bits can be removed or inactivated. The hope is to ultimately be able to rid the body entirely of the virus, although much more work is needed to check it would be safe and effective. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-68609297

On the eve of the 10th anniversary of the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, the BBC have broadcast a new documentary about the mystery called ‘Why Planes Vanish:The Hunt for MH370’ https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001x0yh/why-planes-vanish-the-hunt-for-mh370 This documentary (currently available in UK on iPlayer) provides a concise history of the disappearance of the Boeing 777 flight with 239 souls aboard on March 8th 2014, and updates the story of the ongoing international search to find it. One of the most intriguing leads comes from new research by a retired Aviation engineer Richard Godfrey who has studied the possibility of using…

Are we entering a new phase of climate change with significant consequences for humanity? https://climate.copernicus.eu/copernicus-february-2024-was-globally-warmest-record-global-sea-surface-temperatures-record-high

There is news speculating about it Another ---> https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/nuclear-battery-assembly-guide/all

NASA, after putting men on the moon, co-building a space station, sending probes throughout and beyond the solar system, landing sophisticated exploration robots on Mars, and spending trillions to usher in a new age of exploration, today celebrated the removal of two stuck fasteners on a box of dust! The Guardian reports: Curators at Nasa’s Johnson Space Center in Houston have said they are “overjoyed” to have finally got a canister of asteroid dust open, four months after it parachuted down through the Earth’s atmosphere into the Utah desert. The space administration announced Friday that it had successfully removed two stuck fasteners that had prevented s…

Sam Altman the head of ‘OpenAI’ has been ousted by the company’s board in a move that has sent shockwaves through the sector. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67458603 Altman was the co-founder of the non-profit in 2015 which has become best known for its ground-breaking ChatGPT bot. The company which is now backed by Microsoft was recently reported to be in talks to sell shares to investors at a price that would value it at more than $80bn (£64bn). The company said its board members did not have shares in the firm and that their fundamental governance responsibility was to "advance OpenAI's mission and preserve the principles of its Charter". The C…

Very interesting discovery here, regarding the discover of a cosmic megastructure. Such new discoveries are putting the spotlight on the so called "cosmological principle", the notion that the spatial distribution of matter in the universe is equally distributed and isotropic when viewed on a large enough scale. Summary: A 1.3bn light year-sized ring discovered by PhD student in Lancashire appears to defy the cosmological principle assumption. Astronomers have discovered a ring-shaped cosmic megastructure, the proportions of which challenge existing theories of the universe. The so-called Big Ring has a diameter of about 1.3bn light years, making …

https://phys.org/news/2023-10-scientists-philosophers-nature-evolutionary-law.html

TURIN, Dec 27 (Reuters) - A man may regain the use of his hand, left paralysed by a severe road accident, thanks to a pioneering nerve transfer operation from his partly amputated leg, doctors in northern Italy said. Surgeons at Turin City Hospital (CTO) transferred part of the man's sciatic nerve, which controlled the movement of his amputated foot, to his brachial plexus, the network of nerves that connect the spinal cord to the shoulder, arm and hand. "It's the first time that someone transfers a component of the sciatic nerve to the brachial plexus", Paolo Titolo, one of the surgeons who performed the operation, said in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday…

Whale conservationist Ted Cheeseman admits that the huge animals don't patiently pose for photos. Instead, on most whale-watching trips he says "you see 2% of the whale for 2% of the time". Nevertheless, going out in a boat to try to spot a whale remains very popular. An estimated 13 million people go whale watching every year around the world, and the industry is said to be worth $2.1bn (£1.7bn). The humpback whale is the star of the whale-watching business, as it's relatively common and spends time on the surface. Mr Cheeseman also says that the humpback is "very engaging", with the luckiest whale-watchers catching a breach (a jump out of the water) …

How Googlers cracked OpenAI's ChatGPT with a single word (sfgate.com)

I think, what they meant was pseudo-theory rather than pseudoscience: Consciousness theory slammed as ‘pseudoscience’ — sparking uproar (nature.com)