Has Jupiter been hitting the treadmill? The biggest planet in our Solar System just got a little smaller, thanks to — not a cardio routine — but more precise measuring. Read more from
@ScienceAlert:
i've been lurking for a while on another server, but it's time to make my home here.
So here's my #introduction post. My handle is
@vitskapsdama, which means the Science Lady in Norwegian. I'm a medical writer and #science educator, and have worked for a non-profit youth organisation.
I'm born in #Indonesia, grew up in the #Netherlands and moved in the early 2000s with my family to a small village in #Norway.
I'm interested in Life, the Universe and Everything, love to explore what comes my way and am a lifelong #learner. I love learning by doing and am an #arts and #crafts person.
I try to lead a #sustainable life and to minimize my #footprint, but modern society doe not make that easy. So I like to learn from others and maybe share what works for me.
I post a daily picture of my life over at pixelfed.social (just look up my handle there). I'm not sorry at all for the long post and love to connect with interesting and open-minded people.
They can hide, censor, and deny #climate change science but that doesn't change the #science.
They can try to repeal the #Endangerment Finding but that doesn't change the danger.
Reality will always win and history will never forget what they're doing and who is doing it.
If something sounds too good to be true, maybe that’s your warning. Erythritol is a no-calorie sweetener found in everything from protein bars to energy drinks. But research suggests it may be quietly undermining one of the body's most crucial protective barriers — with potentially serious consequences for heart health and stroke risk. Read more from
@ScienceAlert:
Ten years ago today, physicists reported the first direct detection of gravitational waves, produced by colliding black holes 1.3 billion light years away.
That was when we, as a species, developed space-time eyes. My Invisible Universe column:
Numerical simulations of the gravitational waves emitted by the inspiral and merger of two black holes. The colored contours around each black hole represent the amplitude of the gravitational radiation; the blue lines represent the orbits of the black holes and the green arrows represent their spins.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is refusing to consider Moderna's application for an mRNA flu vaccine. The company has applied for the vaccine's approval in Europe, Canada and Australia. Here's more from
@AssociatedPress.
🐗🐖 What happens to the #animals left behind after a #nuclear disaster? In #Fukushima, escaped domestic #pigs and wild #boars are interbreeding at a rapid pace.
While they aren't "mutants," these hybrids are rewriting the local gene pool, inheriting the fast breeding cycles of their farm-raised ancestors to thrive in a landscape without humans.
Our DNA contains eight different hemoglobin genes, all of which produce proteins that carry oxygen through the blood. These genes all originated from a single ancestral globin gene that existed around 800 million years ago.
A newly updated reference manual for U.S. judges that provides answers to scientific and technical questions has eliminated some 90 pages about climate science.
According to
@WSJ, the Trump administration plans to reverse the finding that says greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare. This would remove regulatory requirements around emission standards for vehicles and reporting obligations for some industries. Here's the full story [gift link].
A social media post:
"Everyone knows that space is very very cold, and the sun is very very hot. so i assume there's a bit of space kind of near the sun which is just right. balmy space."
Ailsa Craig sits about 10 miles off the Scottish coast, a granite dome left behind by a volcanic event millions of years ago. This small, now-uninhabited crag is the birthplace for every Olympic curling stone. It’s where Kays of Scotland, which has made curling stones for the Olympics since the sport appeared in the first Winter Games in 1924, gets their granite.
Ailsa Craig, an uninhabited Scottish granite isle, sits in the distance.Curling stones have to withstand both cold and collisions, something Ailsa’s microgranite excels at. Its elasticity keeps it from cracking, and Ailsa’s unique blue hone granite resists water absorption, so that freeze-thaw cycles don’t erode the surface. That waterproofing makes for the perfect running surface. It’s no wonder that the majority of curling stones in the world originate in Ailsa. (Image credit: A. Grant/AP; via AP)
Can a simple brain exercise cut dementia by 25%? Much like boosting your speed on the treadmill can unlock physical benefits, a study claims that speed training for your brain has a similar effect. Read more from @:
The climate crisis is real, human-created and scary, but we shouldn't give in to the idea that it's too late to do anything at all. Here's Hannah Ritchie's story for MIT Press Reader, adapted from her new book, "Clearing the Air," on what the latest science actually says, and how climate fatalism can put us on a worse trajectory.
Welcome to another Olympic year and another FYFD celebration of the fluid physics that enable these sports! All Winter Olympic sports are required, per the IOC, to take place on snow or ice–one of the strangest substances we know of.
Despite consisting of two simple elements–hydrogen and oxygen–water manages to find a shocking number of ways to configure itself into a solid. So far, scientists have described 21 different configurations for solid water ice. The latest one was created at room temperature and extreme pressures. (The apparatus used can reach pressures 20,000 times atmospheric pressure.)
This particular form of ice is metastable, meaning that it balances on a knife’s edge, existing briefly at conditions where other ice structures are energetically preferable. It’s likely that many such high-temperature, metastable ice forms exist. How many more do you suppose researchers will discover before the next Olympics? (Image credit: L. Borghese; research credit: Y. Lee et al.; via Gizmodo)
Right in front, one of the movable ATs stands tall, while the UTs are scanning the sky.
The lasers emerging from the UTs create each a bright artificial star on the sky to correct observations for the blurring effect of the atmosphere. Until recently, only one UT was equipped with lasers. But now one additional laser has been installed in the other 3.
A panoramic image showing one of the Auxiliary Telescope in front with a closed dome. In the background the four Unit Telescopes are observing the night sky while their lasers light up the image in a warm orange light. The entire Milky Way band is visible on the sky. The horizon is lit up by green, yellow shimmer caused by the airglow.