Cool Science Story Of The Day [Continuing Thread]

[GH85Carrera]

That is cool, but maybe a bit busy for a tile pattern for a backsplash or tile floor!

[masraum]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

That is cool, but maybe a bit busy for a tile pattern for a backsplash or tile floor!

And it might be a pain to cut around pipes, electrical outlets, etc...

As stated in the article, intuition would tell you that finding a shape that never repeats a pattern seems very, VERY unlikely.

[flatbutt]

There is a slight similarity to T shirts so maybe cool to advertise a T shirt business.

[MBAtarga]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

That is cool, but maybe a bit busy for a tile pattern for a backsplash or tile floor!

Get some of that pattern printed out as wallpaper - then hire a poor soul to install that paper in your bathroom!

Ha!

[masraum]

Originally Posted by MBAtarga

Get some of that pattern printed out as wallpaper - then hire a poor soul to install that paper in your bathroom!

Ha!

LOL

"Make sure you line up/match the seams!"

[Norm K]

Originally Posted by masraum

The math nerd in me loves this.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/at-long-last-mathematicians-have-found-a-shape-with-a-pattern-that-never-repeats-180981899/

I guess they're unfamiliar with the infinite number of chimpanzees/infinite amount of time theory ...

_

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Norm K

I guess they're unfamiliar with the infinite number of chimpanzees/infinite amount of time theory ...

_

My guess is having infinite monkeys for infinite time come up with this might be like crossing the streams. And we all know that's bad.

[masraum]

Invasive Brown Widow spiders are killing off native black widow spiders.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/black-widow-spiders-are-being-killed-off-by-non-native-brown-widows-180981894/

With iconic red hourglass markings, shiny black bodies and a reputation as the deadliest spiders in North America, black widows have captured the public’s attention and imagination. But despite their infamy for being dangerous predators, new research reveals the arachnids have become prime prey for their less lethal cousins: brown widow spiders.

“Brown widows will aggressively go after black widows, chase them down,” Louis Coticchio, a biologist at the University of South Florida who led the study, tells the New York Times’ Asher Elbein. “They don’t play well with being neighbors.”

Their cousins, brown widows, originated in either Africa or South America but have managed to colonize every continent but Antarctica. They were first detected in the United States in 1935 in Florida and have since expanded across the South and parts of the West. But as the numbers of these non-native creatures increased, black widows seemed to disappear, writes Live Science’s Harry Baker. At first, entomologists thought brown widows were outcompeting the native spiders for resources, but with ample food and habitat in Florida, and with only black widows displaced, Coticchio wondered if something else was afoot.

To gain more insight into the interactions between the widow spiders, Coticchio and his colleagues placed a brown widow into a tank with either a southern black widow, a red house spider or a triangulate cobweb spider and recorded the outcome.

The results were dramatic: Brown widows were 6.6 times more likely to attack black widows than the other spiders. Young brown widows were particularly aggressive toward their cousins, killing and eating young black widows 80 percent of the time. In pairings of adults, black widows were eaten in 40 percent of the trials, while they defensively killed brown widows 30 percent of the time. The research team published the results this month in Annals of the Entomological Society of America.

“We didn’t expect to find such a dramatic and consistent difference in the personalities of the brown widow and the black widow,” co-author Deby Cassill, an ecologist at the University of South Florida, says in a statement. “Brown widows are boldly aggressive and will immediately investigate a neighbor and attack if there is no resistance from the neighbor. The black widows are extremely shy, counterattacking only to defend themselves against an aggressive spider.”

[Heel n Toe]

Standing on an outcrop of volcanic rock, Joshua Chenoweth looks across the languid waters of California’s Iron Gate Reservoir and imagines the transformation in store for the landscape. In early 2024, operators will open the floodgates on the 49-meter-high dam that blocks the Klamath River, allowing the more than 50 million tons of water it impounds to begin to drain. Once it’s gone, heavy equipment will dismantle the structure. All that will remain of the 11-kilometer-long reservoir that filled the valley for 60 years will be steep-sided slopes coated in gray mud, split once again by a free-flowing river.

Within months, however, that sediment will be covered with a fine, green carpet of seedlings and colorful splashes of flowers, many planted by Chenoweth’s team. Eventually, if all goes as hoped, patches of Gary oak, desert gooseberry, and mock orange will take hold and a lush ribbon of cottonwood, willow, and ash trees will line the banks of the river. Beneath their boughs, salmon that last migrated through this valley more than a century ago will return.

More: https://www.science.org/content/article/historic-dam-removal-poses-challenge-of-restoring-both-river-and-landscape

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Heel n Toe

Standing on an outcrop of volcanic rock, Joshua Chenoweth looks across the languid waters of California’s Iron Gate Reservoir and imagines the transformation in store for the landscape. In early 2024, operators will open the floodgates on the 49-meter-high dam that blocks the Klamath River, allowing the more than 50 million tons of water it impounds to begin to drain. Once it’s gone, heavy equipment will dismantle the structure. All that will remain of the 11-kilometer-long reservoir that filled the valley for 60 years will be steep-sided slopes coated in gray mud, split once again by a free-flowing river.

Within months, however, that sediment will be covered with a fine, green carpet of seedlings and colorful splashes of flowers, many planted by Chenoweth’s team. Eventually, if all goes as hoped, patches of Gary oak, desert gooseberry, and mock orange will take hold and a lush ribbon of cottonwood, willow, and ash trees will line the banks of the river. Beneath their boughs, salmon that last migrated through this valley more than a century ago will return.

More: https://www.science.org/content/article/historic-dam-removal-poses-challenge-of-restoring-both-river-and-landscape

Cool, reclaiming several hundred kilometers of river, and restoring the native flora. And the fact that this was also already done on the other river as well.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Heel n Toe

Standing on an outcrop of volcanic rock, Joshua Chenoweth looks across the languid waters of California’s Iron Gate Reservoir and imagines the transformation in store for the landscape. In early 2024, operators will open the floodgates on the 49-meter-high dam that blocks the Klamath River, allowing the more than 50 million tons of water it impounds to begin to drain. Once it’s gone, heavy equipment will dismantle the structure. All that will remain of the 11-kilometer-long reservoir that filled the valley for 60 years will be steep-sided slopes coated in gray mud, split once again by a free-flowing river.

Within months, however, that sediment will be covered with a fine, green carpet of seedlings and colorful splashes of flowers, many planted by Chenoweth’s team. Eventually, if all goes as hoped, patches of Gary oak, desert gooseberry, and mock orange will take hold and a lush ribbon of cottonwood, willow, and ash trees will line the banks of the river. Beneath their boughs, salmon that last migrated through this valley more than a century ago will return.

More: https://www.science.org/content/article/historic-dam-removal-poses-challenge-of-restoring-both-river-and-landscape

So what was the original purpose of all of these damns, power, water storage, flood management? And why is the purpose no longer needed/valid?

[oldE]

The dams were indeed constructed for the very reasons you enumerated. However there were costs (there always are) not considered. Fish passages may or may not have been designed in, but even if they were, the higher and farther a fish has to go to transit such a structure, the less likely it is to complete the trip, resulting in species loss.
As many dams, with greater or lesser utility reach their end of life, there are often compelling arguments for habitat restoration.

Best
Les

[masraum]

Originally Posted by oldE

The dams were indeed constructed for the very reasons you enumerated. However there were costs (there always are) not considered. Fish passages may or may not have been designed in, but even if they were, the higher and farther a fish has to go to transit such a structure, the less likely it is to complete the trip, resulting in species loss.
As many dams, with greater or lesser utility reach their end of life, there are often compelling arguments for habitat restoration.

Best
Les

Right, and besides the obvious ecological issues, many times dams have more direct human impact often submerging homes and in same cases, villages. I'm sure folks in the US have had to move, but I know that I've heard of damns in foreign countries submerging villages, often multiple villages, and sometimes ancient/archeological sites.

[Pazuzu]

Originally Posted by masraum

Invasive Brown Widow spiders are killing off native black widow spiders.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/black-widow-spiders-are-being-killed-off-by-non-native-brown-widows-180981894/

I missed this one. We built a sign on the street for our building. I went in there for some lighting maintenance after it was closed up for a few months, and it was flat out FILLED with brown widows. I only knew that, because they had spiky egg sacks, which I had never seen before. Black widows (and basically every other spider) have smooth egg sacks, while brown widows have spiky ones.

Also, apparently far less dangerous to humans that black widows. Maybe we'll find that browns take over the Southwest over blacks, and we are safer in our homes.





Yes, I realize that some jerk will cut and past that sentence somewhere on the interwebs to make me look racist.

[Heel n Toe]

Originally Posted by Pazuzu

I realize that some jerk will cut and paste that sentence somewhere on the interwebs to make me look racist.

Don't worry about that. If anyone here sees it, we will attack the jerk mercilessly, telling him what a great guy you were before you became a racist.

[kach22i]

WARNING not a "cool" story, more of a nightmare so stop reading if it is late at night.

Subject: transmissible cancers (in animals only for now).

How a 6,000-Year-Old Dog Cancer Spread Around the World
A massive collection of dog tumor samples is revealing the secrets of a contagious, parasite-like cancer that could help explain human cancers too.
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/how-a-6-000-year-old-dog-cancer-spread-around-the-world?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us

[john70t]

A miniature seed-into-soil injection device, made from wood.
https://files.catbox.moe/rw28ji.mp4

There are probably better designs which can hold water/fertilizer/etc. depending on the soil.

[jyl]

https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-destroy-99-of-cancer-cells-in-the-lab-using-vibrating-molecules

A class of synthetic dyes, already used to bind to and highlight cancer cells, can be made to vibrate on exposure to near infrared light. The vibration destroys the cancer cell to which the dye molecules are attached. Tested on mice with skin cancer, perhaps some potential in other cancers depending on how far near-infrared penetrates. This is the first I’ve heard of a non-surgical mechanical approach to destroying cancer cells.

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by jyl

https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-destroy-99-of-cancer-cells-in-the-lab-using-vibrating-molecules

A class of synthetic dyes, already used to bind to and highlight cancer cells, can be made to vibrate on exposure to near infrared light. The vibration destroys the cancer cell to which the dye molecules are attached. Tested on mice with skin cancer, perhaps some potential in other cancers depending on how far near-infrared penetrates. This is the first I’ve heard of a non-surgical mechanical approach to destroying cancer cells.

Wow, cool science indeed.

[kach22i]

The most "Earth-Like" planet in our solar system is not Mars, it's Venus!

Amazon Prime Documentary
Venus: Death of a Planet
https://www.amazon.com/Venus-Death-Planet-David-Brody/dp/B0B8RNB813/ref=sr_1_1?crid=W3441LUMQ1&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.RRXBB4xCoDsxfEYdy2q3ndGzcU-79cCaCpJ-Rvq8egDFHAZSf_3S7GxUE28QLuIz7cp5_MOAUx11ASr04YTGtm SiUOM-RsAnESyABYy9ozLte99Akq5z3nYTWvgTeBkReVcpXShR5fCuhr nOpnbQ22glY_E0znzER200BIRtLxJbNz56FU_VEorNv_cx6LXP ktFfkKwFi9gQBnmjq78o6W9FiQ2JTQ7jAXldkZ3AQys.DCWewX dLJlMsMfVMv5jFjkhRtbc89MC9PRVhub2Xq1s&dib_tag=se&keywords=venus+death+of+a+planet&qid=1705753495&s=instant-video&sprefix=venus%2Cinstant-video%2C123&sr=1-1

The second planet from the sun, Venus, with its toxic overheated surface, has long been neglected by planetary mission planners. Lately, Earth's sister planet has taken center stage in one of the greatest quests in science today: the search for life-bearing worlds beyond the solar system. Scientists want to know: Why did Earth live, and why did Venus die?

Regarding the giant spot and or spots picked up as solid objects in the atmosphere via infrared imagery, found this 2021 article.

2021
Scientists puzzling out secrets of Venus' 30-year-old 'Giant Dark Cloud'
https://www.space.com/venus-giant-dark-cloud-infrared-study

There are many strange things happening on Venus. Among them is a recognizable weather pattern that scientists now realize has persisted in the planet's atmosphere for at least 30 years.

Nicknamed the "Giant Dark Cloud," scientists first noticed that feature in data gathered by an infrared camera aboard the Japanese spacecraft Akatsuki, which has been orbiting Venus since 2015. The cloud is huge, spanning a third of the planet's latitude around its equator. After identifying the feature, scientists went looking for it in archives of similar infrared observations of the planet and found its signature across the full three decades' worth of relevant data..............

The Giant Dark Cloud feature has two aspects to it, McGouldrick noted. "Initially, this was called a 'disruption.' It was recognized as a sharp transition from light to dark that was fairly repeatable," he said. That transition unfolded over only a couple of degrees of longitude, although it stretches from the equator about 30 degrees latitude north and south. "But then there also was this massive structure behind it, almost hemisphere-size scale" — hence the name.

The whole thing also seemed to orbit differently from the rest of Venus' weather, lopping the planet once every five days, a few days more rapidly than what McGouldrick called "background clouds."..........