Leaderboard

It’s 2,000,000 ppb for Na and 110,000 ppb for K, which might account for a large part of this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_the_chemical_elements

Well, the Oxford U P link, on the triple transients, is worth reading the abstract and then the summary section at the end, where the range of possible distances of the objects is calculated. Between 2 LY and somewhere in the solar system (but not in Earth orbit). It's a mystery on several levels, including if they are actually three objects (no more than 6 AU from each other, if the dimmings are causally connected) or a single one with some unusual gravitational lensing effect. Not thunder, but still an anomaly worth following up on.

A cricket commentary as reported on a facebook account(the late Brian Johnson) "Sometimes, unintended humour can be the best. The late Brian Johnson was a star performer when on Test Match Special. He once remarked innocently, ‘the batsman’s Holding, the bowler’s Willey.’ When he realised his statement was hardly appropriate he had a fit of giggles. It still makes me smile. Not what he said, but his reaction to it" There was all this too (gaelic games commentaries of old) Legendary witty GAA commentator Mícheál O'Muircheartaigh is an active 93. Thanks to Ferghal McCarthy for these live gems. -Sean Óg Ó hAilpín: his father’s from Fermanagh, his mother’s from Fiji. Neither a hurling stronghold. -Anthony Lynch, the Cork corner-back, will be the last person to let you down – his people are undertakers. -The stopwatch has stopped. It’s up to God and the referee now. The referee is Pat Horan. God is God. - Brian Dooher is down injured. And while he is, I’ll tell ye a little story: I was in Times Square in New York last week, and I was missing the Championship back home. So I approached a newsstand and I said, “I suppose ye wouldn’t have The Kerryman, would ye?” To which, the Egyptian behind the counter turned to me and he said, “Do you want the North Kerry edition, or the South Kerry edition?” He had both – so I bought both. And Dooher is back on his feet… Colin Corkery on the 45 lets go with the right boot. It's over the bar. This man shouldn’t be playing football. He’s made an almost Lazarus-like recovery from a heart condition. Lazarus was a great man but he couldn’t kick points like Colin Corkery. Teddy McCarthy to Mick McCarthy, no relation, Mick McCarthy back to Teddy McCarthy, still no relation. I saw a few Sligo people at Mass in Gardiner Street this morning and the omens seem to be good for them. The priest was wearing the same colours as the Sligo jersey! 40 yards out on the Hogan Stand side of the field, Ciarán Whelan goes on a rampage… it’s a goal! So much for religion. He grabs the sliothar, he’s on the 50! He’s on the 40! He’s on the 30… he’s on the ground! Pat Fox out to the forty and grabs the sliothar. I bought a dog from his father last week. Fox turns and sprints for goal… the dog ran a great race last Tuesday in Limerick… Fox, to the 21, fires a shot – it goes to the left and wide… and the dog lost as well. In the first half, they played with the wind. In the second half, they played with the ball. 1-5 to 0-8… well, from Lapland to the Antarctic, that’s level scores in any man’s language. Pat Fox has it on his hurl and is motoring well now, but here comes Joe Rabbitte hot on his tail… I’ve seen it all now, a Rabbitte chasing a Fox around Croke Park. Here’s another I recall; " Jimmy Barry Murphy. Jimmy Barry Murphy. One of the ten. The ten who have won All Ireland Hurling and Football Senior Medals. He will be spoken of till the end of time”. Teddy looks at the ball, the ball looks at Teddy… Mike Houlihan for Limerick. He had his jaw broken by a kick from a bullock two months ago. He’s back now. ‘Twas some bullock that broke Mike Houlihan’s jaw!

I've just caught up with this discussion and I agree about the apparent Maxwell's Demonish nature of the explanation on Wiki. The problem I have with it is just as you say, that the arriving photons are not in phase so there won't be any coordinated flow of electrons induced. All you will get is an increase in their thermal, i.e. uncoordinated) kinetic energy. The diode aspect of the device would seem to have to work at the level of individual photon-induced excitations. I am reminded of the "Brownian Ratchet": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownian_ratchet But I would be most interested if someone can point out what I am missing.

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 it among the largest structures ever observed. At more than 9bn light years from Earth, it is too faint to see directly, but its diameter on the night sky would be equivalent to 15 full moons. The observations, presented on Thursday at the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society in New Orleans, are significant because the size of the Big Ring appears to defy a fundamental assumption in cosmology called the cosmological principle. This states that above a certain spatial scale, the universe is homogeneous and looks identical in every direction. Full Article: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/jan/11/newly-discovered-cosmic-megastructure-challenges-theories-of-the-universe