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Science thread for space and earth and life and just all of that

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Posts

  • JedocJedoc In the scuppers with the staggers and jagsRegistered User regular
    If you want to be crude about it, yeah.

    GDdCWMm.jpg
  • BroloBrolo Broseidon Lord of the BroceanRegistered User regular



    This isn’t a spider, but an effigy that a spider has built out of debris to represent a huge version of itself

    No body knows why this spider in the Philippines sculpts a decoy or how 11000 miles away in the Amazon, another spider does the same

    More reading and source of image wired.com/2014/01/more-d…

    More reading on the Amazon forest discovery
    smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/spi…

    seems like a giant decoy could keep away a lot of predators?

  • BahamutZEROBahamutZERO Registered User regular
    or trick the predators into attacking the decoy while the real spider can escape

    BahamutZERO.gif
  • DepressperadoDepressperado I just wanted to see you laughing in the pizza rainRegistered User regular
    or because the spider, correctly, thought "it'd be totally dope if I had a giant statue of me made out of the corpses of my meals."

  • 3cl1ps33cl1ps3 I will build a labyrinth to house the cheese Registered User regular
    oh sure it's cool when a spider builds a huge effigy of itself out of the corpses of its victims but when I do it it's "illegal"

  • PinfeldorfPinfeldorf Yeah ZestRegistered User regular
    3cl1ps3 wrote: »
    oh sure it's cool when a spider builds a huge effigy of itself out of the corpses of its victims but when I do it it's "illegal"

    Nobody wants to see 132 taxidermied squirrels Voltron their way to a human body!

    Actually, I take that back. I sure want to see that.

  • LabelLabel Registered User regular
    edited October 2022
    Melia's Extraordinary Ithumba Birth
    https://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/news/updates/melia-extraordinary-birth
    In the early morning hours of 29th October, wild elephants and ex-orphans began congregating outside Ithumba, as has become their habit during the dry season. Just after sunrise, Head Keeper Benjamin heard a great commotion, followed by a flurry of movement. Amidst all the elephants, something had fallen on the earth. Its arrival sent the wild bulls running for the hills, ears flapping and trumpets blaring in consternation. In fact, all the elephants seemed startled about whatever had landed in their midst. Even the older females, who are usually quite placid, made themselves scarce.

    Label on
  • RanlinRanlin Oh gosh Registered User regular
    Pinfeldorf wrote: »
    3cl1ps3 wrote: »
    oh sure it's cool when a spider builds a huge effigy of itself out of the corpses of its victims but when I do it it's "illegal"

    Nobody wants to see 132 taxidermied squirrels Voltron their way to a human body!

    Actually, I take that back. I sure want to see that.

    I just read about the Nac Mac Feagle doing that with my daughter the other day in a Tiffany Aching discworld book!

  • DarmakDarmak RAGE vympyvvhyc vyctyvyRegistered User regular
    Ranlin wrote: »
    Pinfeldorf wrote: »
    3cl1ps3 wrote: »
    oh sure it's cool when a spider builds a huge effigy of itself out of the corpses of its victims but when I do it it's "illegal"

    Nobody wants to see 132 taxidermied squirrels Voltron their way to a human body!

    Actually, I take that back. I sure want to see that.

    I just read about the Nac Mac Feagle doing that with my daughter the other day in a Tiffany Aching discworld book!

    The what now

    JtgVX0H.png
  • DepressperadoDepressperado I just wanted to see you laughing in the pizza rainRegistered User regular
    they're Pictsies!

  • Librarian's ghostLibrarian's ghost Librarian, Ghostbuster, and TimSpork Registered User regular
    Ranlin wrote: »
    Pinfeldorf wrote: »
    3cl1ps3 wrote: »
    oh sure it's cool when a spider builds a huge effigy of itself out of the corpses of its victims but when I do it it's "illegal"

    Nobody wants to see 132 taxidermied squirrels Voltron their way to a human body!

    Actually, I take that back. I sure want to see that.

    I just read about the Nac Mac Feagle doing that with my daughter the other day in a Tiffany Aching discworld book!

    You should definitely get your daughter away from the Nac Mac Feagle. It is not safe for her to run around with them even if she is in a discworld book somehow.

    I’m sure your daughter had fun building an effigy with them though.

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  • hiraethhiraeth SpaceRegistered User regular
    the insects will need a sassy jedi to take that spider out

  • andrewandrew Registered User, ClubPA regular
    Ranlin wrote: »
    Pinfeldorf wrote: »
    3cl1ps3 wrote: »
    oh sure it's cool when a spider builds a huge effigy of itself out of the corpses of its victims but when I do it it's "illegal"

    Nobody wants to see 132 taxidermied squirrels Voltron their way to a human body!

    Actually, I take that back. I sure want to see that.

    I just read about the Nac Mac Feagle doing that with my daughter the other day in a Tiffany Aching discworld book!

    You should definitely get your daughter away from the Nac Mac Feagle. It is not safe for her to run around with them even if she is in a discworld book somehow.

    I’m sure your daughter had fun building an effigy with them though.

    Nah, they teach good life lessons and if she plays her cards right she could end up as temporary Kelda

    Nae Kings, nae Queens, nae Lairds.

    If we all internalised that mantra we'd be in a better place.

    The one about the fucking space hairdresser and the cowboy. He's got a tinfoil pal and a pedal bin
  • 3cl1ps33cl1ps3 I will build a labyrinth to house the cheese Registered User regular
    a2XXXMD.jpeg

  • FishmanFishman Put your goddamned hand in the goddamned Box of Pain. Registered User regular
    edited December 2022
    So it's the 50th Anniversary (Or 50 years and 37.5 hours) of the final Apollo moon mission, Apollo 17.

    Famous for taking the photo known as 'The Blue Marble', it was the longest Apollo mission, with the most/longest lunar EVAs and most time spent on/at the moon.

    If you're the kind of person like me who enjoys doing such things, this is also one of the missions you can follow in real time at https://apolloinrealtime.org/17/ . You can keep it open in the corner of a monitor somewhere and just stream an entire mission to your screen for a week or so. I've had it open for a couple days, because I find it nifty and educational - my kids loved following Apollo 13 in real time during the lockdown, which was good, because we really needed a bit of an event to stir up lockdown.

    Anyway, I thought I'd mention it.

    Fishman on
    X-Com LP Thread I, II, III, IV, V
    That's unbelievably cool. Your new name is cool guy. Let's have sex.
  • BahamutZEROBahamutZERO Registered User regular
    edited December 2022
    Take all headlines about fusion power with a huge grain of salt. Especially from non-scientific journal sources.
    They tend to be exaggerated and sensationalist and they've been having news stories breathlessly declare stuff like that for 30 years.
    There is a vast gulf between "we think we saw positive net power in a test run" and "fusion reactors are a practical commercial power source," for another thing.

    BahamutZERO on
    BahamutZERO.gif
  • BroloBrolo Broseidon Lord of the BroceanRegistered User regular
    can't believe I'm gonna have a fusion powered self driving flying car in 2024

    that I can fuck

  • LanzLanz ...Za?Registered User regular
    edited December 2022
    Take all headlines about fusion power with a huge grain of salt. Especially from non-scientific journal sources.
    They tend to be exaggerated and sensationalist and they've been having news stories breathlessly declare stuff like that for 30 years.
    There is a vast gulf between "we think we saw positive net power in a test run" and "fusion reactors are a practical commercial power source," for another thing.

    Understandable but the preliminary in the body itself seems promising: supposedly a net gain of .4 megajoules

    Like it’s not going to be powering much anytime soon (especially when you consider it took 2.1 megajoules to initiate the reaction) but, assuming the final analysis verifies that, even at this small amount this would be the first time we got more energy out than put in period, right?

    We’re still talking baby steps in the end but it’s still a big one given where we were before

    Lanz on
    waNkm4k.jpg?1
  • BahamutZEROBahamutZERO Registered User regular
    edited December 2022
    yeah it's a baby step, one more on the long road to viable fusion reactors

    god fusion is SO MUCH harder than fission

    BahamutZERO on
    BahamutZERO.gif
  • ToxTox I kill threads they/themRegistered User regular
    Brolo wrote: »
    can't believe I'm gonna have a fusion powered self driving flying car in 2024

    that I can fuck

    The all new

    All-electric

    Lexus Jelq

    Discord Lifeboat | Dilige, et quod vis fac
  • SirToastySirToasty Registered User regular
    Tox wrote: »
    Brolo wrote: »
    can't believe I'm gonna have a fusion powered self driving flying car in 2024

    that I can fuck

    The all new

    All-electric

    Lexus Jelq

    State of the art self-driving for minimal carring.

  • HadesHades Registered User regular
    Can't wait to go down to the GM dealership and buy a BattleMech.

  • LanzLanz ...Za?Registered User regular
    Huh; Re-reading, missed the bit where the Energy Sec is going to be giving a press conference about this on Tuesday

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  • KetBraKetBra Dressed Ridiculously Registered User regular
    My BSc thesis project was on characterizing pre-plasma density profiles for fast ignition.

    This is pretty damn cool!

    KGMvDLc.jpg?1
  • ElvenshaeElvenshae Registered User regular
    For what it's worth, it's hit sites like CNN, as well:

    https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/12/politics/nuclear-fusion-energy-us-scientists-climate/index.html

    For the first time ever, US scientists at the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California successfully produced a nuclear fusion reaction resulting in a net energy gain, a source familiar with the project confirmed to CNN.

    The US Department of Energy is expected to officially announce the breakthrough Tuesday.

    The result of the experiment would be a massive step in a decadeslong quest to unleash an infinite source of clean energy that could help end dependence on fossil fuels. Researchers for decades have attempted to recreate nuclear fusion – replicating the fusion that powers the sun.

    US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm will make an announcement Tuesday on a “major scientific breakthrough,” the department announced Sunday. The breakthrough was first reported by the Financial Times.

    Nuclear fusion happens when two or more atoms are fused into one larger one, a process that generates a massive amount of energy as heat. Unlike nuclear fission that powers electricity all over the world, it doesn’t generate long-lived radioactive waste.

    Yeah, so, with the Energy Secretary weighing in on this ...

  • Captain InertiaCaptain Inertia Central OhioRegistered User regular
    Assuming this is validated, does something like this basically demonstrate that commercial fusion is feasible, and open up more funding/investment with the assumption that the financial risks are not as big now?

    l7ygmd1dd4p1.jpeg
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  • PolaritiePolaritie Sleepy Registered User regular
    It sounds like the headlines are premature, since the scientists haven't actually finished crunching the numbers (and apparently some of the detectors were damaged by higher than expected yield). Also unclear whether the output energy is still net positive after losing some of it converting to electricity.

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  • JasconiusJasconius sword criminal mad onlineRegistered User regular
    the scale of the experiment is pretty small i think... but any fusion breakthrough is a big deal

    but for us to get anywhere close to "hey this could really do something" a fusion reactor would have to make much closer to double what it takes to produce the reaction in the first place...

    this is 20% more... at a very "small" scale.... using bleeding edge equipment and bazillions of years of global scientific manpower

    still a long road ahead, but the fact that it's even possible is a good sign

    this is a discord of mostly PA people interested in fighting games: https://discord.gg/DZWa97d5rz

    we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
  • LanzLanz ...Za?Registered User regular
    Jasconius wrote: »
    the scale of the experiment is pretty small i think... but any fusion breakthrough is a big deal

    but for us to get anywhere close to "hey this could really do something" a fusion reactor would have to make much closer to double what it takes to produce the reaction in the first place...

    this is 20% more... at a very "small" scale.... using bleeding edge equipment and bazillions of years of global scientific manpower

    still a long road ahead, but the fact that it's even possible is a good sign

    Yeah we need to understand it’s still baby steps, but that baby steps are still a pretty good progress from where we’ve been.

    waNkm4k.jpg?1
  • BahamutZEROBahamutZERO Registered User regular
    Fusion power isn't fucking infinite god I hate news articles about fusion power
    Assuming this is validated, does something like this basically demonstrate that commercial fusion is feasible, and open up more funding/investment with the assumption that the financial risks are not as big now?

    It might open more funding or it might not. Not commercially feasible yet by a long shot. At this stage they are still struggling with breaking even on energy at a small scale, let alone scaling that up in size and output thousands of times, running a reactor for an extended period of time, and running one at all without expensive constant maintenance. And it needs to make enough energy to pay for all the expensive setup and maintenance costs and still have enough left over to compete with oil and solar and etc. on profitability.

    It sounds like this was an experiment with the "shoot pellets into each other with particle accelerators and compress the explosion with lasers" style reactor, neat that they actually got that to work. I remember going to a lecture at a public library about that concept in the mid 00s when they were still looking for funding to try to build one.

    BahamutZERO.gif
  • PolaritiePolaritie Sleepy Registered User regular
    Realistically, renewable power is already starting to eat fossil fuels' lunch, and all it needs is better (or more) batteries to just do everything, right?

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  • MrMonroeMrMonroe passed out on the floor nowRegistered User regular
    Well we're going to need shitloads more batteries to make fusion workable too, so, happy accidents?

  • PinfeldorfPinfeldorf Yeah ZestRegistered User regular
    Hopefully we come up with a sustainable way to make batteries, or a way to make sustainable batteries, or both, because what we've got right now has Many Issues.

  • JasconiusJasconius sword criminal mad onlineRegistered User regular
    im a big fan of the "giant flywheel" approach which is totally ridiculous with our current power sources but with utopian fusion would probably be fine?????

    this is a discord of mostly PA people interested in fighting games: https://discord.gg/DZWa97d5rz

    we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
  • NaphtaliNaphtali Hazy + Flow SeaRegistered User regular
    Jasconius wrote: »
    im a big fan of the "giant flywheel" approach which is totally ridiculous with our current power sources but with utopian fusion would probably be fine?????

    we've decided to go with the omelas model fusion reactor

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  • PinfeldorfPinfeldorf Yeah ZestRegistered User regular
    Why is it always a reactor and not a proactor anyway? We should try to be more proactive.

  • JedocJedoc In the scuppers with the staggers and jagsRegistered User regular
    I think a nuclear proactor is a bomb.

    GDdCWMm.jpg
  • LanzLanz ...Za?Registered User regular
    Pinfeldorf wrote: »
    Why is it always a reactor and not a proactor anyway? We should try to be more proactive.

    The proactors keep leaving for Hollywood

    waNkm4k.jpg?1
  • PinfeldorfPinfeldorf Yeah ZestRegistered User regular
    Jedoc wrote: »
    I think a nuclear proactor is a bomb.

    I know it'd be good but I'm not sure I'm comfortable with saying it'd be the bomb, you know?

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