MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
You know when you were told that lichen are a symbiosis of a fungus and an algae/cyanobacterium? And it blew people's minds back in the day when they discovered this?
Turns out, it wasn't even the whole story. Lichens are a symbiosis of two unrelated funguses plus a photosynthesizer. People had tried to combine the one known fungus and the photosynthesizer together in the lab to make lichen but had failed for over a century, because they were missing the yeast that ends up holding the two together.
You know when you were told that lichen are a symbiosis of a fungus and an algae/cyanobacterium? And it blew people's minds back in the day when they discovered this?
Turns out, it wasn't even the whole story. Lichens are a symbiosis of two unrelated funguses plus a photosynthesizer. People had tried to combine the one known fungus and the photosynthesizer together in the lab to make lichen but had failed for over a century, because they were missing the yeast that ends up holding the two together.
I'm imaging that people have been ignoring those sequences for years and assuming they were just contamination.
And while it links to the papers abstract, I don't see a way to access the paper itself (which is fine, I know how that stuff works from school, I didn't expect it to be available really, I could just borrow numerous family members academic accounts if I want to get it), so just going off the description in the article, can someone tell me if what I'm about to say is a correct way to summarize the conclusions from the paper (all normal qualifications for the term "conclusion" apply):
Entanglement is a fundamental aspect of all physics because if two objects can interact, they do(and have) interact(ed), thus their properties are inherently entangled. Based on this entanglement is as much of a law of general physics as any other aspect, and should be treated the same as any other constant or rule and not "special".
Yes? No? Close? Way off?
I'm thinking about some other stuff (because I like to think, not related to anything substantial) and having a firmer grip on this would let me guide my ponderings.
And while it links to the papers abstract, I don't see a way to access the paper itself (which is fine, I know how that stuff works from school, I didn't expect it to be available really, I could just borrow numerous family members academic accounts if I want to get it), so just going off the description in the article, can someone tell me if what I'm about to say is a correct way to summarize the conclusions from the paper (all normal qualifications for the term "conclusion" apply):
Entanglement is a fundamental aspect of all physics because if two objects can interact, they do(and have) interact(ed), thus their properties are inherently entangled. Based on this entanglement is as much of a law of general physics as any other aspect, and should be treated the same as any other constant or rule and not "special".
Yes? No? Close? Way off?
I'm thinking about some other stuff (because I like to think, not related to anything substantial) and having a firmer grip on this would let me guide my ponderings.
here is part 1 of a course by leonard susskind on entanglement. but from what I understand you are correct in that the idea that two objects interacting in the past leads to a kind of "entanglement" is the classical analogy to actual quantum entanglement. But there is a deeper idea there in the quantum case.
one of the fundamental ideas of quantum entanglement is that in a maximally entangled system with 2 parts you can know everything that it is physically possible to know (even with infinite time, power and technology) about the whole system while also knowing absolutely nothing about each of its parts. Which is strange because in classical physics of course if you know everything about a system you must know about the parts it is made of.
And while it links to the papers abstract, I don't see a way to access the paper itself (which is fine, I know how that stuff works from school, I didn't expect it to be available really, I could just borrow numerous family members academic accounts if I want to get it), so just going off the description in the article, can someone tell me if what I'm about to say is a correct way to summarize the conclusions from the paper (all normal qualifications for the term "conclusion" apply):
Entanglement is a fundamental aspect of all physics because if two objects can interact, they do(and have) interact(ed), thus their properties are inherently entangled. Based on this entanglement is as much of a law of general physics as any other aspect, and should be treated the same as any other constant or rule and not "special".
Yes? No? Close? Way off?
I'm thinking about some other stuff (because I like to think, not related to anything substantial) and having a firmer grip on this would let me guide my ponderings.
The bold part is not necessarily saying what I think you're saying.
Entanglement of quantum states is mostly about the creation of superposed quantum states (systems with multiple simultaneous physical states, only one of which will be measured at such time as a measurement occurs). When people talk about entangled particles and action at a distance it's usually about a system where someone has set up two unmeasured particles to be entangled such that one may measure one of them and infer information about the other one, apparently (to a naive reading of the situation) violating things like the speed of light. Decades of subsequent experiment and theory have shown that quantum entanglement doesn't violate causality but absolutely does exist.
One can say, as you have, that any two systems which interact are in a sense entangled. This is essentially the basis for the Everett's universal wave function interpretation of QM (aka the many-worlds interpretation): once the observer interacts with the experiment the two become entangled, producing a wave-function describing the observer/observed system and obviating the need for inexplicable wave-function collapse (the wave-function for the observer/observed system remains uncollapsed but the superposed states cannot interact, leading the observer in either state to experience only that state despite both existing into perpetuity).
The transition from the quantum regime to the classical regime involves things like 'renomalization', which smooth out the weird parts of QM in large systems, producing the obviously-causal, intuitive rules of classical mechanics. If one were to look at classical mechanics alone, with no idea of QM, one would not assume that a more-fundamental theory of mechanics must necessarily involve anything weird like superposed wave states to describe not-classically-wave-like objects. This paper appears (I can't access the whole thing either, being no longer in academia) to be an effort to provide a mathematical proof which shows you cannot formulate a more-fundamental mechanical law which can simplify to the classical regime without it including entanglement. I have to assume that this is based on some fundamental axioms in their proof regarding observable superpositions.
All that said, entanglement doesn't 'mean anything' in the classical regime outside of very specially-constructed scenarios. If I measure the velocity of a falling ball using a stopwatch then yes, me, my watch, and the ball (along with the Earth and the rest of the universe) are in some sense entangled but it isn't a useful observation in that it doesn't produce any more information about the experiment than ignoring the underlying quantum realities would do.
And while it links to the papers abstract, I don't see a way to access the paper itself (which is fine, I know how that stuff works from school, I didn't expect it to be available really, I could just borrow numerous family members academic accounts if I want to get it), so just going off the description in the article, can someone tell me if what I'm about to say is a correct way to summarize the conclusions from the paper (all normal qualifications for the term "conclusion" apply):
Entanglement is a fundamental aspect of all physics because if two objects can interact, they do(and have) interact(ed), thus their properties are inherently entangled. Based on this entanglement is as much of a law of general physics as any other aspect, and should be treated the same as any other constant or rule and not "special".
Yes? No? Close? Way off?
I'm thinking about some other stuff (because I like to think, not related to anything substantial) and having a firmer grip on this would let me guide my ponderings.
The bold part is not necessarily saying what I think you're saying.
Entanglement of quantum states is mostly about the creation of superposed quantum states (systems with multiple simultaneous physical states, only one of which will be measured at such time as a measurement occurs). When people talk about entangled particles and action at a distance it's usually about a system where someone has set up two unmeasured particles to be entangled such that one may measure one of them and infer information about the other one, apparently (to a naive reading of the situation) violating things like the speed of light. Decades of subsequent experiment and theory have shown that quantum entanglement doesn't violate causality but absolutely does exist.
One can say, as you have, that any two systems which interact are in a sense entangled. This is essentially the basis for the Everett's universal wave function interpretation of QM (aka the many-worlds interpretation): once the observer interacts with the experiment the two become entangled, producing a wave-function describing the observer/observed system and obviating the need for inexplicable wave-function collapse (the wave-function for the observer/observed system remains uncollapsed but the superposed states cannot interact, leading the observer in either state to experience only that state despite both existing into perpetuity).
The transition from the quantum regime to the classical regime involves things like 'renomalization', which smooth out the weird parts of QM in large systems, producing the obviously-causal, intuitive rules of classical mechanics. If one were to look at classical mechanics alone, with no idea of QM, one would not assume that a more-fundamental theory of mechanics must necessarily involve anything weird like superposed wave states to describe not-classically-wave-like objects. This paper appears (I can't access the whole thing either, being no longer in academia) to be an effort to provide a mathematical proof which shows you cannot formulate a more-fundamental mechanical law which can simplify to the classical regime without it including entanglement. I have to assume that this is based on some fundamental axioms in their proof regarding observable superpositions.
All that said, entanglement doesn't 'mean anything' in the classical regime outside of very specially-constructed scenarios. If I measure the velocity of a falling ball using a stopwatch then yes, me, my watch, and the ball (along with the Earth and the rest of the universe) are in some sense entangled but it isn't a useful observation in that it doesn't produce any more information about the experiment than ignoring the underlying quantum realities would do.
Right, but isn't that the idea behind the paper. If you make entanglement part of standard physics, it does mean something because it becomes something that plays into the way it interacts with everything else, like mass or velocity of an object. We don't currently know how, maybe, but saying it doesn't "mean anything" just restates the current distinction between quantum and standard physics, in that you don't need to know the quantum nature of an object to measure what we currently understand by reliable observation. But isn't the point to be able to measure what we currently can't (possibly because we don't even know the question to ask, as far as what we'd be measuring), with more information? At least it seems to me that is what the idea here is.
So, yeah, it doesn't help current measurements to know if two things are entangled; but with that information, maybe we can find out something new, and when that thing becomes reliable enough to measure, and useful enough in practice, entanglement is suddenly just as 'normal' and important of a measurement as mass. Again, that seems to be my take on what they're aiming for with the paper. It isn't to say you can't measure velocity without knowing the quantum state of an object, but to say that in order to even know why something observable like entanglement matters to the bigger picture, it needs to become something that is measured like any other detail of a thing.
I mean, using the dropping a ball example, if we had the ability to measure something through time, observing the ball would allow for observation of you, without ever having to had known of your existence in the first place. Because you interacted at some point and became entangled, one would be observable through the other. Maybe physical particles entangle with "dark matter" and a better means to measure and quantify entanglement would give us the tools to observe what we can only currently theorize.
Quantum theory has to reconcile with measurable physics at some point, and if things like entanglement are to be proven, they have to be measured and tested. If entanglement is something that occurs, it has to have a purpose, a function, presumably. You might not need it to measure velocity, but if it turns out to be an accurate theory, it is needed to measure something.
I realize it is still a lot of fumbling around and theories that won't necessarily pan out for various reasons, some may be just way off. Entanglement itself might be something else entirely from what we are currently observing, and the conclusions of what is happening might not hold up when new information is found. Back to the paper though, if they can prove that (as they claim, from the sounds of it) entanglement is a necessary component of everything in the same way other measurable aspects are, then it becomes part of standard physics and it all holds up (which again, seems to be what they're saying they've shown, that it does hold up).
So I guess maybe what I should have asked was: Assuming their conclusions about entanglement being a measurable part of matter, like mass for instance, are correct, <things generally describing entanglement> must be a given for all matter; right?
Entanglement does affect properties that are considered part of the approximation that is classical physics. For example a pair of electrons in a singlet state (maximally entangled) have slightly less total energy than two electrons in a product state (not entangled).
also, what is being called "standard physics" here seems to be the older, less accurate approximation that holds for large systems. IE: classical physics. Actually "standard" physics since the 1940s has been quantum mechanics. Quantum electrodynamics, for example, has been tested against experiment to be correct to higher accuracy than any classical theory in the history of physics (including relativity). Quantum physics is better supported by empirical data than non-quantum physics.
And while it links to the papers abstract, I don't see a way to access the paper itself (which is fine, I know how that stuff works from school, I didn't expect it to be available really, I could just borrow numerous family members academic accounts if I want to get it), so just going off the description in the article, can someone tell me if what I'm about to say is a correct way to summarize the conclusions from the paper (all normal qualifications for the term "conclusion" apply):
Entanglement is a fundamental aspect of all physics because if two objects can interact, they do(and have) interact(ed), thus their properties are inherently entangled. Based on this entanglement is as much of a law of general physics as any other aspect, and should be treated the same as any other constant or rule and not "special".
Yes? No? Close? Way off?
I'm thinking about some other stuff (because I like to think, not related to anything substantial) and having a firmer grip on this would let me guide my ponderings.
The bold part is not necessarily saying what I think you're saying.
Entanglement of quantum states is mostly about the creation of superposed quantum states (systems with multiple simultaneous physical states, only one of which will be measured at such time as a measurement occurs). When people talk about entangled particles and action at a distance it's usually about a system where someone has set up two unmeasured particles to be entangled such that one may measure one of them and infer information about the other one, apparently (to a naive reading of the situation) violating things like the speed of light. Decades of subsequent experiment and theory have shown that quantum entanglement doesn't violate causality but absolutely does exist.
One can say, as you have, that any two systems which interact are in a sense entangled. This is essentially the basis for the Everett's universal wave function interpretation of QM (aka the many-worlds interpretation): once the observer interacts with the experiment the two become entangled, producing a wave-function describing the observer/observed system and obviating the need for inexplicable wave-function collapse (the wave-function for the observer/observed system remains uncollapsed but the superposed states cannot interact, leading the observer in either state to experience only that state despite both existing into perpetuity).
The transition from the quantum regime to the classical regime involves things like 'renomalization', which smooth out the weird parts of QM in large systems, producing the obviously-causal, intuitive rules of classical mechanics. If one were to look at classical mechanics alone, with no idea of QM, one would not assume that a more-fundamental theory of mechanics must necessarily involve anything weird like superposed wave states to describe not-classically-wave-like objects. This paper appears (I can't access the whole thing either, being no longer in academia) to be an effort to provide a mathematical proof which shows you cannot formulate a more-fundamental mechanical law which can simplify to the classical regime without it including entanglement. I have to assume that this is based on some fundamental axioms in their proof regarding observable superpositions.
All that said, entanglement doesn't 'mean anything' in the classical regime outside of very specially-constructed scenarios. If I measure the velocity of a falling ball using a stopwatch then yes, me, my watch, and the ball (along with the Earth and the rest of the universe) are in some sense entangled but it isn't a useful observation in that it doesn't produce any more information about the experiment than ignoring the underlying quantum realities would do.
Right, but isn't that the idea behind the paper. If you make entanglement part of standard physics, it does mean something because it becomes something that plays into the way it interacts with everything else, like mass or velocity of an object. We don't currently know how, maybe, but saying it doesn't "mean anything" just restates the current distinction between quantum and standard physics, in that you don't need to know the quantum nature of an object to measure what we currently understand by reliable observation. But isn't the point to be able to measure what we currently can't (possibly because we don't even know the question to ask, as far as what we'd be measuring), with more information? At least it seems to me that is what the idea here is.
So, yeah, it doesn't help current measurements to know if two things are entangled; but with that information, maybe we can find out something new, and when that thing becomes reliable enough to measure, and useful enough in practice, entanglement is suddenly just as 'normal' and important of a measurement as mass. Again, that seems to be my take on what they're aiming for with the paper. It isn't to say you can't measure velocity without knowing the quantum state of an object, but to say that in order to even know why something observable like entanglement matters to the bigger picture, it needs to become something that is measured like any other detail of a thing.
I mean, using the dropping a ball example, if we had the ability to measure something through time, observing the ball would allow for observation of you, without ever having to had known of your existence in the first place. Because you interacted at some point and became entangled, one would be observable through the other. Maybe physical particles entangle with "dark matter" and a better means to measure and quantify entanglement would give us the tools to observe what we can only currently theorize.
Quantum theory has to reconcile with measurable physics at some point, and if things like entanglement are to be proven, they have to be measured and tested. If entanglement is something that occurs, it has to have a purpose, a function, presumably. You might not need it to measure velocity, but if it turns out to be an accurate theory, it is needed to measure something.
I realize it is still a lot of fumbling around and theories that won't necessarily pan out for various reasons, some may be just way off. Entanglement itself might be something else entirely from what we are currently observing, and the conclusions of what is happening might not hold up when new information is found. Back to the paper though, if they can prove that (as they claim, from the sounds of it) entanglement is a necessary component of everything in the same way other measurable aspects are, then it becomes part of standard physics and it all holds up (which again, seems to be what they're saying they've shown, that it does hold up).
So I guess maybe what I should have asked was: Assuming their conclusions about entanglement being a measurable part of matter, like mass for instance, are correct, <things generally describing entanglement> must be a given for all matter; right?
Quantum mechanics isn't purely theoretical. I can't think of any aspects that don't have extensive experimental evidence.
Mass, for example, is a result of quantum interactions.
What I meant by 'not useful' at a macro-scale in the classical regime is that there's nothing useful to be gleaned from the entanglement between my measurement apparatus' system and the system which is the falling ball. Sure, with a sufficiently advanced detection device you could probably come up with an experiment that made something of that entanglement but I'm not sure what that would be.
I guess a good analogy would be the Bell inequalities. At one point, before we had a lot of experimental evidence supporting every aspect of quantum theory, people who didn't like the idea of entanglement would suggest hidden physical properties which we'd not yet figured out how to detect which determined the outcome of experiments which appeared to support entanglement. A guy named John Bell came up with a mathematical method to show that hidden variables couldn't explain the apparent non-locality of quantum mechanics, leading to the Bell Theorem which says it's impossible to construct a hidden variable theory which accurately reproduces quantum mechanics. This paper basically takes that one step further by saying that no theory which doesn't include entanglement can accurately reproduce classical mechanics, either - when taking classical mechanics as a limit problem for a quantum theory.
MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
The bird they discovered is pretty neat
but I just can't get how people missed a river dolphin before. Dolphins aren't small and there's a limited range where they can be at any particular moment (which is to say, they're gonna be in the river). And there have to be at least hundreds of them for there to be a viable genetic base, so people had to miss the existence of a great many river dolphins for a long time, in an area where transport is mostly by river.
Which yeah, just shows how much is unexplored and undocumented in this world despite our best efforts (like how the boiling river in the Amazon was only officially documented recently too) but this is still bonkers to me.
The new dolphins could have been located in an area that hadn't been looked at before. Or it could be that they were mistaken for known amazon river dolphins previously without having had a closer examination to differentiate them as a separate species.
SiliconStew on
Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
It is probably similar to the discovery of the Coelacanth, which was known to local fishers as a worthless catch because it's not good eating, but wasn't 'discovered' until 1938.
It's very similar to the known Amazon river dolphin, but lives in a different watershed and has some distinct morphology and genetics. Or, put another way, it's a geographically isolated sub population of the amazon river dolphin that has begun to differentiate.
I like that they didn't just find a new bird and get some blurry distance shots of it up in a tree or something.
They found a new bird and got that feathery bastard to perch on their hand for glamour shots.
There is a reason why cats wiped out multiple isolated bird species. That picture illustrates it.
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"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
I like that they didn't just find a new bird and get some blurry distance shots of it up in a tree or something.
They found a new bird and got that feathery bastard to perch on their hand for glamour shots.
I doubt it. They probably killed the bird, stuffed it, and then put it on their hand.
That person is pretty clearly holding on to its legs so they can photograph it
Wouldn't be necessary if it was dead, I seriously doubt they killed it
They almost certainly did, though maybe not that one. Pretty much all new species are only described through dead specimens.
"Why did they shoot this newly rediscovered rare thing" seems quite a common news story.
I like that they didn't just find a new bird and get some blurry distance shots of it up in a tree or something.
They found a new bird and got that feathery bastard to perch on their hand for glamour shots.
I doubt it. They probably killed the bird, stuffed it, and then put it on their hand.
That person is pretty clearly holding on to its legs so they can photograph it
Wouldn't be necessary if it was dead, I seriously doubt they killed it
They almost certainly did, though maybe not that one. Pretty much all new species are only described through dead specimens.
"Why did they shoot this newly rediscovered rare thing" seems quite a common news story.
If anyone ever sees a Tasmanian Tiger still alive, the irony is they're going to try and kill it to prove it's still alive.
I like that they didn't just find a new bird and get some blurry distance shots of it up in a tree or something.
They found a new bird and got that feathery bastard to perch on their hand for glamour shots.
I doubt it. They probably killed the bird, stuffed it, and then put it on their hand.
That person is pretty clearly holding on to its legs so they can photograph it
Wouldn't be necessary if it was dead, I seriously doubt they killed it
They almost certainly did, though maybe not that one. Pretty much all new species are only described through dead specimens.
"Why did they shoot this newly rediscovered rare thing" seems quite a common news story.
The first one they shoot, the second one they capture, the third one they eat.
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MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
I like that they didn't just find a new bird and get some blurry distance shots of it up in a tree or something.
They found a new bird and got that feathery bastard to perch on their hand for glamour shots.
I doubt it. They probably killed the bird, stuffed it, and then put it on their hand.
That person is pretty clearly holding on to its legs so they can photograph it
Wouldn't be necessary if it was dead, I seriously doubt they killed it
They almost certainly did, though maybe not that one. Pretty much all new species are only described through dead specimens.
"Why did they shoot this newly rediscovered rare thing" seems quite a common news story.
Not anymore with birds.* Since any new species found these days are likely geographically limited, and thus have limited populations, new bird species are described by catching birds alive (in mist nets), photographing the heck of them, taking measurements, a small blood sample and a couple feathers for DNA tests, and then releasing. All the information can be made available online, so it's more convenient than just having a skin in a drawer in a museum somewhere, which is only available to people to physically can show up to that museum.
That bird is very much alive and is being held in what's called the Photographer's Grip, which as it sounds, is for taking good photographs. If birds are held firmly where their legs connect to the rest of the body, they can't move around much but there's no danger of breaking their legs or anything else. If the bird was dead, it wouldn't be able to hold itself up like that. Once all the pictures are taken and everything's done, the bird is released to fly away and go back to whatever it was doing before the alien abduction happened.
I do this live catch-and-release stuff all the time at bird banding programs. For instance, this golden-winged warbler we caught one spring:
*I think it's shifting with other species too with the proliferation of high-quality video and photography equipment for cheap, especially with trail cameras these days. The existence of jaguars in the US, probably recent border-crossers, wasn't confirmed by shooting them north of the border, but though trail cameras. Similarly with fisher cats starting to return to Iowa. Preserved skins can be inconvenient too because they shrink as they dry, so accurate measurements aren't great from them.
Also, DNA testing is getting cheaper and cheaper. Researchers can collect animal scat and determine how many individuals they represent. It's possible that in the future people might identify new species completely through photographs and DNA out of their poop without ever even physically touching that species.
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MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
So, it appears we might accidentally have a gonorrhea vaccine. After researching places that had mass vaccinations for group B meningococcal bacteria, scientists found there were also drops in gonorrhea, which made some sense to them because the bacteria are closely related. It wasn't perfect, which makes sense since it wasn't specifically targeted towards gonorrhea, and they're not entirely sure that it works the same way as it does in preventing meningitis, but a vaccine would be a huge deal, not the least because antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea is increasingly a thing.
From the department of casual observation: I haven’t seen this many monarch butterflies since I was kid. This might even be more than that. They are everywhere. Go for a walk in my neighborhood and every flowering bush is full of them. They are even hanging out in the Walmart parking lot here.
Been at least twenty years since I’d seen more than a couple a lot a time. It’s pretty great.
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MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
Just to be safe here, are they monarchs
or are they painted ladies?
I ask because I've seen a few people who confused the two or thought any orange butterfly is a monarch. Monarch populations are still in decline (though you might have some monarch breeders in your area; there are several around here) but there's been a huge painted lady population boom this year and their migration this year has been spectacular.
Viceroys are even more similar and aren't suffering the way monarchs are. I haven't seen a butterfly I was sure was a monarch since about 2012. I don't pay that much attention but my parents taught me to recognize the muddy brownish orange of a vicroy and the brilliant orange of a monarch.
Favourite crazy fact about Monarchs, they take a random detour half way whilst crossing Lake Superior, so rather than going straight south across it they head out a bit west before turning south during their crossing of the lake - extending the journey quite a bit. Some recent geological evidence published in 2013 has suggested that this is because they're avoiding a mountain that has since eroded and sunken away, but at some point during the migration that portion of the lake was just too high to fly over so they went around. Generations have just continued to follow that same route, even now the mountains are gone.
Tastyfish on
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That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
When I was but a wee lad, we would take regular trips to the St. Marks Lighthouse during the monarch butterfly migration. They would swarm the marshlands around lighthouse by the thousands to feast on milkweed. It was a sight to behold.
Favourite crazy fact about Monarchs, they take a random detour half way whilst crossing Lake Superior, so rather than going straight south across it they head out a bit west before turning south during their crossing of the lake - extending the journey quite a bit. Some recent geological evidence published in 2013 has suggested that this is because they're avoiding a mountain that has since eroded and sunken away, but at some point during the migration that portion of the lake was just too high to fly over so they went around. Generations have just continued to follow that same route, even now the mountains are gone.
Are you sure it was a mountain and not a glacier? I'm not sure that mountain-forming orogeny has occurred in that area since long before flowering plants evolved. Glaciers were definitely around geologically recently in that region though.
Remember a while back when Planet Earth 2 came out and for a couple of weeks this thread was filled with the most incredible footage, including a crazy chase scene with a newly hatched iguana escaping a horde of waiting snakes?
Well the BBC are doing it again, only this time they're doing it underwater.
I cannot stress this enough. If you are in any way interested in marine biology or the natural world, you are going to need to watch this show. If you have Netflix you can watch Blue Planet, which in itself was a groundbreaking documentary whose team discovered a host of species that were new to science and filmed many more engaging in natural behaviour that had never been observed before. Watch it, and get excited with me. Because I am very excited, you guys. I am so, so excited.
And yes, that's Radiohead helping out with the score, along with Hans Zimmerman.
Favourite crazy fact about Monarchs, they take a random detour half way whilst crossing Lake Superior, so rather than going straight south across it they head out a bit west before turning south during their crossing of the lake - extending the journey quite a bit. Some recent geological evidence published in 2013 has suggested that this is because they're avoiding a mountain that has since eroded and sunken away, but at some point during the migration that portion of the lake was just too high to fly over so they went around. Generations have just continued to follow that same route, even now the mountains are gone.
Are you sure it was a mountain and not a glacier? I'm not sure that mountain-forming orogeny has occurred in that area since long before flowering plants evolved. Glaciers were definitely around geologically recently in that region though.
So... davidsdurions what butterfly was it?
Definitely the Painted Ladies variety. Imgur is being a butt and not letting me upload pictures.
They are all over town though, certainly the largest amount of any butterflies I’ve seen around here in a couple decades.
Edit: picture from down the street.
davidsdurions on
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HonkHonk is this poster.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I found some episodes of Blue Planet pretty scary tbqh
Still very interesting and pretty. Except some of the stuff living in the ocean - very not pretty.
Remember a while back when Planet Earth 2 came out and for a couple of weeks this thread was filled with the most incredible footage, including a crazy chase scene with a newly hatched iguana escaping a horde of waiting snakes?
Well the BBC are doing it again, only this time they're doing it underwater.
I cannot stress this enough. If you are in any way interested in marine biology or the natural world, you are going to need to watch this show. If you have Netflix you can watch Blue Planet, which in itself was a groundbreaking documentary whose team discovered a host of species that were new to science and filmed many more engaging in natural behaviour that had never been observed before. Watch it, and get excited with me. Because I am very excited, you guys. I am so, so excited.
And yes, that's Radiohead helping out with the score, along with Hans Zimmerman.
Ye Gods! It's like they're right when they said a "generation ago". Blue Planet was the first of the mega-budget BBC wildlife unit's productions paired up with Discovery in the US - first footage of Orcas hunting grey whales was in Blue Planet 1.
If you can watch them on the BBC do, not only do you get Attenborough's narration, but because they have to chop it down to make room for adverts on US channels - the BBC generally don't mess with the film itself but add 15 mins to the end of behind the scenes, showing how they filmed it. Planet Earth II's are obviously incredibly (and don't include the madness they did to get the racer snake video, they saved that for their website), with the best probably being the dolphins in the submerged forest and the city leopards. Not just handicam footage but a lot stuff that wasn't in the main feature as it didn't fit the shot they were going for then.
This is honestly the most amazing stuff you'll ever see on TV, even more so when you see the physical challenges required to do it and they talk you through the tech.
But best of all, they tell you were they did it in the credits. And in this day of modern wonders, you can go see. If something moves you, see where they did it and go see for yourself.
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Turns out, it wasn't even the whole story. Lichens are a symbiosis of two unrelated funguses plus a photosynthesizer. People had tried to combine the one known fungus and the photosynthesizer together in the lab to make lichen but had failed for over a century, because they were missing the yeast that ends up holding the two together.
I'm imaging that people have been ignoring those sequences for years and assuming they were just contamination.
I just read this article here: http://gizmodo.com/scientists-finally-prove-strange-quantum-physics-idea-e-1798433666
And while it links to the papers abstract, I don't see a way to access the paper itself (which is fine, I know how that stuff works from school, I didn't expect it to be available really, I could just borrow numerous family members academic accounts if I want to get it), so just going off the description in the article, can someone tell me if what I'm about to say is a correct way to summarize the conclusions from the paper (all normal qualifications for the term "conclusion" apply):
Entanglement is a fundamental aspect of all physics because if two objects can interact, they do(and have) interact(ed), thus their properties are inherently entangled. Based on this entanglement is as much of a law of general physics as any other aspect, and should be treated the same as any other constant or rule and not "special".
Yes? No? Close? Way off?
I'm thinking about some other stuff (because I like to think, not related to anything substantial) and having a firmer grip on this would let me guide my ponderings.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
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here is part 1 of a course by leonard susskind on entanglement. but from what I understand you are correct in that the idea that two objects interacting in the past leads to a kind of "entanglement" is the classical analogy to actual quantum entanglement. But there is a deeper idea there in the quantum case.
one of the fundamental ideas of quantum entanglement is that in a maximally entangled system with 2 parts you can know everything that it is physically possible to know (even with infinite time, power and technology) about the whole system while also knowing absolutely nothing about each of its parts. Which is strange because in classical physics of course if you know everything about a system you must know about the parts it is made of.
The bold part is not necessarily saying what I think you're saying.
Entanglement of quantum states is mostly about the creation of superposed quantum states (systems with multiple simultaneous physical states, only one of which will be measured at such time as a measurement occurs). When people talk about entangled particles and action at a distance it's usually about a system where someone has set up two unmeasured particles to be entangled such that one may measure one of them and infer information about the other one, apparently (to a naive reading of the situation) violating things like the speed of light. Decades of subsequent experiment and theory have shown that quantum entanglement doesn't violate causality but absolutely does exist.
One can say, as you have, that any two systems which interact are in a sense entangled. This is essentially the basis for the Everett's universal wave function interpretation of QM (aka the many-worlds interpretation): once the observer interacts with the experiment the two become entangled, producing a wave-function describing the observer/observed system and obviating the need for inexplicable wave-function collapse (the wave-function for the observer/observed system remains uncollapsed but the superposed states cannot interact, leading the observer in either state to experience only that state despite both existing into perpetuity).
The transition from the quantum regime to the classical regime involves things like 'renomalization', which smooth out the weird parts of QM in large systems, producing the obviously-causal, intuitive rules of classical mechanics. If one were to look at classical mechanics alone, with no idea of QM, one would not assume that a more-fundamental theory of mechanics must necessarily involve anything weird like superposed wave states to describe not-classically-wave-like objects. This paper appears (I can't access the whole thing either, being no longer in academia) to be an effort to provide a mathematical proof which shows you cannot formulate a more-fundamental mechanical law which can simplify to the classical regime without it including entanglement. I have to assume that this is based on some fundamental axioms in their proof regarding observable superpositions.
All that said, entanglement doesn't 'mean anything' in the classical regime outside of very specially-constructed scenarios. If I measure the velocity of a falling ball using a stopwatch then yes, me, my watch, and the ball (along with the Earth and the rest of the universe) are in some sense entangled but it isn't a useful observation in that it doesn't produce any more information about the experiment than ignoring the underlying quantum realities would do.
Right, but isn't that the idea behind the paper. If you make entanglement part of standard physics, it does mean something because it becomes something that plays into the way it interacts with everything else, like mass or velocity of an object. We don't currently know how, maybe, but saying it doesn't "mean anything" just restates the current distinction between quantum and standard physics, in that you don't need to know the quantum nature of an object to measure what we currently understand by reliable observation. But isn't the point to be able to measure what we currently can't (possibly because we don't even know the question to ask, as far as what we'd be measuring), with more information? At least it seems to me that is what the idea here is.
So, yeah, it doesn't help current measurements to know if two things are entangled; but with that information, maybe we can find out something new, and when that thing becomes reliable enough to measure, and useful enough in practice, entanglement is suddenly just as 'normal' and important of a measurement as mass. Again, that seems to be my take on what they're aiming for with the paper. It isn't to say you can't measure velocity without knowing the quantum state of an object, but to say that in order to even know why something observable like entanglement matters to the bigger picture, it needs to become something that is measured like any other detail of a thing.
I mean, using the dropping a ball example, if we had the ability to measure something through time, observing the ball would allow for observation of you, without ever having to had known of your existence in the first place. Because you interacted at some point and became entangled, one would be observable through the other. Maybe physical particles entangle with "dark matter" and a better means to measure and quantify entanglement would give us the tools to observe what we can only currently theorize.
Quantum theory has to reconcile with measurable physics at some point, and if things like entanglement are to be proven, they have to be measured and tested. If entanglement is something that occurs, it has to have a purpose, a function, presumably. You might not need it to measure velocity, but if it turns out to be an accurate theory, it is needed to measure something.
I realize it is still a lot of fumbling around and theories that won't necessarily pan out for various reasons, some may be just way off. Entanglement itself might be something else entirely from what we are currently observing, and the conclusions of what is happening might not hold up when new information is found. Back to the paper though, if they can prove that (as they claim, from the sounds of it) entanglement is a necessary component of everything in the same way other measurable aspects are, then it becomes part of standard physics and it all holds up (which again, seems to be what they're saying they've shown, that it does hold up).
So I guess maybe what I should have asked was: Assuming their conclusions about entanglement being a measurable part of matter, like mass for instance, are correct, <things generally describing entanglement> must be a given for all matter; right?
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
also, what is being called "standard physics" here seems to be the older, less accurate approximation that holds for large systems. IE: classical physics. Actually "standard" physics since the 1940s has been quantum mechanics. Quantum electrodynamics, for example, has been tested against experiment to be correct to higher accuracy than any classical theory in the history of physics (including relativity). Quantum physics is better supported by empirical data than non-quantum physics.
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Quantum mechanics isn't purely theoretical. I can't think of any aspects that don't have extensive experimental evidence.
Mass, for example, is a result of quantum interactions.
What I meant by 'not useful' at a macro-scale in the classical regime is that there's nothing useful to be gleaned from the entanglement between my measurement apparatus' system and the system which is the falling ball. Sure, with a sufficiently advanced detection device you could probably come up with an experiment that made something of that entanglement but I'm not sure what that would be.
I guess a good analogy would be the Bell inequalities. At one point, before we had a lot of experimental evidence supporting every aspect of quantum theory, people who didn't like the idea of entanglement would suggest hidden physical properties which we'd not yet figured out how to detect which determined the outcome of experiments which appeared to support entanglement. A guy named John Bell came up with a mathematical method to show that hidden variables couldn't explain the apparent non-locality of quantum mechanics, leading to the Bell Theorem which says it's impossible to construct a hidden variable theory which accurately reproduces quantum mechanics. This paper basically takes that one step further by saying that no theory which doesn't include entanglement can accurately reproduce classical mechanics, either - when taking classical mechanics as a limit problem for a quantum theory.
They have discovered 381 new species, including the first new species of dolphin discovered since the First World War.
but I just can't get how people missed a river dolphin before. Dolphins aren't small and there's a limited range where they can be at any particular moment (which is to say, they're gonna be in the river). And there have to be at least hundreds of them for there to be a viable genetic base, so people had to miss the existence of a great many river dolphins for a long time, in an area where transport is mostly by river.
Which yeah, just shows how much is unexplored and undocumented in this world despite our best efforts (like how the boiling river in the Amazon was only officially documented recently too) but this is still bonkers to me.
It's very similar to the known Amazon river dolphin, but lives in a different watershed and has some distinct morphology and genetics. Or, put another way, it's a geographically isolated sub population of the amazon river dolphin that has begun to differentiate.
They found a new bird and got that feathery bastard to perch on their hand for glamour shots.
I doubt it. They probably killed the bird, stuffed it, and then put it on their hand.
There is a reason why cats wiped out multiple isolated bird species. That picture illustrates it.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
That person is pretty clearly holding on to its legs so they can photograph it
Wouldn't be necessary if it was dead, I seriously doubt they killed it
"Oh hey a new bird species... Imma grab that feathery little bastard."
They almost certainly did, though maybe not that one. Pretty much all new species are only described through dead specimens.
"Why did they shoot this newly rediscovered rare thing" seems quite a common news story.
If anyone ever sees a Tasmanian Tiger still alive, the irony is they're going to try and kill it to prove it's still alive.
The first one they shoot, the second one they capture, the third one they eat.
Not anymore with birds.* Since any new species found these days are likely geographically limited, and thus have limited populations, new bird species are described by catching birds alive (in mist nets), photographing the heck of them, taking measurements, a small blood sample and a couple feathers for DNA tests, and then releasing. All the information can be made available online, so it's more convenient than just having a skin in a drawer in a museum somewhere, which is only available to people to physically can show up to that museum.
That bird is very much alive and is being held in what's called the Photographer's Grip, which as it sounds, is for taking good photographs. If birds are held firmly where their legs connect to the rest of the body, they can't move around much but there's no danger of breaking their legs or anything else. If the bird was dead, it wouldn't be able to hold itself up like that. Once all the pictures are taken and everything's done, the bird is released to fly away and go back to whatever it was doing before the alien abduction happened.
I do this live catch-and-release stuff all the time at bird banding programs. For instance, this golden-winged warbler we caught one spring:
*I think it's shifting with other species too with the proliferation of high-quality video and photography equipment for cheap, especially with trail cameras these days. The existence of jaguars in the US, probably recent border-crossers, wasn't confirmed by shooting them north of the border, but though trail cameras. Similarly with fisher cats starting to return to Iowa. Preserved skins can be inconvenient too because they shrink as they dry, so accurate measurements aren't great from them.
Also, DNA testing is getting cheaper and cheaper. Researchers can collect animal scat and determine how many individuals they represent. It's possible that in the future people might identify new species completely through photographs and DNA out of their poop without ever even physically touching that species.
Been at least twenty years since I’d seen more than a couple a lot a time. It’s pretty great.
or are they painted ladies?
I ask because I've seen a few people who confused the two or thought any orange butterfly is a monarch. Monarch populations are still in decline (though you might have some monarch breeders in your area; there are several around here) but there's been a huge painted lady population boom this year and their migration this year has been spectacular.
Are you sure it was a mountain and not a glacier? I'm not sure that mountain-forming orogeny has occurred in that area since long before flowering plants evolved. Glaciers were definitely around geologically recently in that region though.
So... @davidsdurions what butterfly was it?
Well the BBC are doing it again, only this time they're doing it underwater.
I cannot stress this enough. If you are in any way interested in marine biology or the natural world, you are going to need to watch this show. If you have Netflix you can watch Blue Planet, which in itself was a groundbreaking documentary whose team discovered a host of species that were new to science and filmed many more engaging in natural behaviour that had never been observed before. Watch it, and get excited with me. Because I am very excited, you guys. I am so, so excited.
And yes, that's Radiohead helping out with the score, along with Hans Zimmerman.
Definitely the Painted Ladies variety. Imgur is being a butt and not letting me upload pictures.
They are all over town though, certainly the largest amount of any butterflies I’ve seen around here in a couple decades.
Edit: picture from down the street.
Still very interesting and pretty. Except some of the stuff living in the ocean - very not pretty.
But seriously I always loved watching Jacques Cousteau stuff with my mother, I should watch Blue Planet.
Ye Gods! It's like they're right when they said a "generation ago". Blue Planet was the first of the mega-budget BBC wildlife unit's productions paired up with Discovery in the US - first footage of Orcas hunting grey whales was in Blue Planet 1.
If you can watch them on the BBC do, not only do you get Attenborough's narration, but because they have to chop it down to make room for adverts on US channels - the BBC generally don't mess with the film itself but add 15 mins to the end of behind the scenes, showing how they filmed it. Planet Earth II's are obviously incredibly (and don't include the madness they did to get the racer snake video, they saved that for their website), with the best probably being the dolphins in the submerged forest and the city leopards. Not just handicam footage but a lot stuff that wasn't in the main feature as it didn't fit the shot they were going for then.
This is honestly the most amazing stuff you'll ever see on TV, even more so when you see the physical challenges required to do it and they talk you through the tech.
But best of all, they tell you were they did it in the credits. And in this day of modern wonders, you can go see. If something moves you, see where they did it and go see for yourself.