Science & Technology

China estimated to gain 600 million 5G subscribers by 2025

Xinhua
Tue, 22 Oct 2019 20:18 UTC

China will have over 600 million 5G subscribers by 2025, accounting for nearly 40 percent of the global total, Sihan Bo Chen, head of GSMA Greater China, told Xinhua on Monday.

The global 5G subscriber forecast has increased to 1.6 billion by 2025 from 1.4 billion, and much of this growth will come from China based on operators' rolled-out plans, she said, citing a forecast by GSMA, an international association in the mobile industry.

Up to 85 percent of the Chinese population will subscribe to mobile services by 2025, while 88 percent of those subscribers will have smartphones and 36 percent will use 5G services, said John Hoffman, CEO of GSMA Ltd.

NASA pinpoints the cause of recent record carbon dioxide spike

Dwayne Brown, Alan Buis
nasa.gov
Sat, 12 Oct 2019 00:00 UTC

© NASA/JPL-Caltech
The last El Nino in 2015-16 impacted the amount of carbon dioxide that Earth’s tropical regions released into the atmosphere, leading to Earth’s recent record spike in atmospheric carbon dioxide. The effects of the El Nino were different in each region.

A new NASA study provides space-based evidence that Earth's tropical regions were the cause of the largest annual increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration seen in at least 2,000 years.

Scientists suspected the 2015-16 El Nino -- one of the largest on record -- was responsible, but exactly how has been a subject of ongoing research. Analyzing the first 28 months of data from NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) satellite, researchers conclude impacts of El Nino-related heat and drought occurring in tropical regions of South America, Africa and Indonesia were responsible for the record spike in global carbon dioxide. The findings are published in the journal Science Friday as part of a collection of five research papers based on OCO-2 data.

"These three tropical regions released 2.5 gigatons more carbon into the atmosphere than they did in 2011," said Junjie Liu of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, who is lead author of the study.

"Our analysis shows this extra carbon dioxide explains the difference in atmospheric carbon dioxide growth rates between 2011 and the peak years of 2015-16. OCO-2 data allowed us to quantify how the net exchange of carbon between land and atmosphere in individual regions is affected during El Nino years."

A gigaton is a billion tons.

Comment: Carbon dioxide has no major role in Earth's temperature fluctuations, be they increases or decreases. Watch:

PragerU features Stephen Meyer in new video: Evolution - bacteria to Beethoven

Andrew McRiarmid
Evolution News
Mon, 21 Oct 2019 16:53 UTC

Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection has, with some modifications, been embraced as unassailable by the science community over the last century. So much so that evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins has famously stated that "If you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane." But is that right?

In a new PragerU video, Stephen Meyer answers that question by presenting two big reasons to doubt the evolutionary account of life's origins - the Cambrian explosion and the DNA enigma. The animated video is a nice summary of Meyer's book-length treatments of those two problems. And at under 6 minutes, the video makes a great conversation starter!

Watch it below, and be sure to share it with your friends and family. Also note that a study guide is available, as well as a transcript of Meyer's commentary. You can even take a five-question quiz after watching it to make sure you were paying attention. Enjoy!

Comment: For more on why evolution is bunk, see SOTT's ongoing series by Mandatory Intellectomy:

World's largest geode formed when Mediterranean sea disappeared

Brandon Specktor
Live Science
Mon, 21 Oct 2019 20:07 UTC

© Hector Garrido
Most geodes can fit in the palm of your hand. The Pulpí Geode can fit your entire family inside it. A researcher stands inside the crystal-filled cave known as the Pulpí Geode — the single largest geode on Earth.

In an abandoned mine in southern Spain, there is a room of pure crystal.

To get there, you'll have to descend deep into tunnels, climb a ladder into an inconspicuous hole in the rocks and squeeze through a jagged tube of gypsum crystals barely wide enough for one person. If you make it that far, you'll be standing inside the world's largest geode: the Pulpí Geode, a 390-cubic-foot (11 cubic meters) cavity about the size of a cement mixer drum, studded with crystals as clear as ice and sharp as spears on every surface.

While you may have never stood inside a geode, you've probably held, or at least seen, one before.

"Many people have little geodes in their home," Juan Manuel García-Ruiz, a geologist at the Spanish National Research Council and co-author of a new paper on the history of the Pulpí Geode, told Live Science. "It's normally defined as an egg-shaped cavity inside a rock, lined with crystals."

Comment: See also:

Doctors' beliefs influence patients' pain, study finds

Paul Biegler
Cosmos Magazine
Mon, 21 Oct 2019 19:18 UTC

© Hero Images, via Getty Images
New findings about the placebo effect may influence how doctors are trained to interact with patients.

Researchers have found the placebo effect, where a medical treatment with no active ingredient still works, is "contagious" and can be passed on from doctors to patients.

The finding, reported in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, suggests doctors with a stronger belief in their treatments may enact a self-fulfilling prophecy, unwittingly delivering more effective medicine.

The placebo effect is well established. Simply believing an injection will take pain away can make it work, even when the syringe is just full of saltwater.

Those expectations drive powerful changes in the brain, releasing the body's own internal pain killers or "endogenous opioids", which then faithfully deliver up the result.

But the researchers, led by Luke Chang from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, US, were intrigued by evidence that the beliefs of the "treater" can also influence whether something works.

For example, when school teachers are led to believe certain students are "growth spurters", those kids do better on a standardised test at the end of the year.

Indian PM Modi speaks out against anti-technology sentiment, says AI can be harnessed to benefit mankind

RT
Mon, 21 Oct 2019 16:09 UTC

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has spoken out against anti-technology sentiment in his country, arguing that the debate over artificial intelligence (AI) is needlessly pessimistic.

Speaking at his official residence during the launch of a new book on the subject, Modi told attendees that a "major effort is being made to demonize technology. Attempts are being made to create an atmosphere of fear."

He stressed that concerns about the potential of rogue or dangerous AI systems have stemmed from a poor understanding of what the technology offers to the world.

"The debate should be on how to create a bridge between artificial intelligence and human intentions," he said. Technology, according to Modi, can be used "for everyone's development."

His comments were part of a launch event for a new book, 'Bridgital Nation,' which envisages India becoming a leading economic power by 2030 thanks to the country's decision to embrace advanced technology.

Hubble captures an asteroid 'photobombing' the Crab Nebula

RT
Mon, 21 Oct 2019 11:44 UTC

After NASA and the ESA threw open the Hubble Space Telescope archives to amateur astronomers, one of them managed to find a stunning 'photobomb' of an asteroid crossing in front of the mesmerizing Crab Nebula.

The US and European space agencies started the Hubble Asteroid Hunter citizen science project in June, but were not prepared for the overwhelming enthusiasm shown by over 1,900 volunteers who managed to complete 300,000 classifications of nearly 11,000 images in only 1.5 months, blowing past even the most optimistic expectations for the project.

One astronomy enthusiast in particular, Melina Thévenot from Germany, discovered a captivating image while trawling through the archives. Thévenot processed different versions of a 2005 image of the Crab Nebula, combining views taken in blue, green and red filters, and found the trail of asteroid 2001 SE101 is visible near the nebula's center.

The Crab Nebula, also known as Messier 1 or M1, is the expanding remnant of a supernova explosion first observed by astronomers in 1054. The rapidly spinning neutron star left behind after the explosion is visible at the centre of the image as well (it is the leftmost star in the binary pair).

Mysterious newly discovered virus DEFIES EVOLUTION, current scientific understanding

RT
Mon, 21 Oct 2019 13:16 UTC

Scientists in Japan have discovered a new type of virus which could redefine our understanding of viruses and how they propagate and spread, all while sifting through pig feces.

Unlike most other organisms which fall under the definition of 'life,' viruses have no cells: they are merely a particle of genetic material (RNA or DNA) within a protein shield that is capable of infecting a cell before replicating.

While sifting through pig feces, as you do, researchers from the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology (TUAT) came across a virus which defied everything we thought we knew about the infectious agents.

"The recombinant virus we found in this study has no structural proteins," says virologist Tetsuya Mizutani from TUAT about the strain of a type of enterovirus G (EV-G) the team encountered. "This means the recombinant virus cannot make a viral particle."

Talented slime mold with no brain and '720 sexes' unveiled at Paris zoo

Matt Reynolds
Wired
Sun, 20 Oct 2019 12:53 UTC

It's official: Humans are canceled. If we're not intent on slowly destroying the planet, then we're getting busy being downright nasty to each other online. But in a world increasingly devoid of human role models, there are some unlikely sources of inspiration out there.

Enter The Blob — a yellowish chunk of slime mold set to make its debut at the Paris Zoological Park on Saturday. With nearly 720 sexes, and the ability to heal itself in two minutes if cut in half, The Blob (or La Blob, as it's called in France) is surprisingly accomplished for such a simple organism.

And despite having no mouth, eyes, or brain, slime mold can remember things and solve simple problems. Impressive, considering that some humans reach political office without mastering most of these tasks.

Comment: See also:

Long strand of DNA from Neanderthals found in Melanesians

Michael Marshall
New Scientist
Thu, 17 Oct 2019 12:00 UTC

Many people have DNA inside them that they inherited from extinct hominins like the Neanderthals - and now we know that in some cases it isn't just tiny snippets but long stretches.

Over the past decade, genetic analysis of human DNA has revealed that ancient humans must have interbred many times with other hominins such as Neanderthals. The result is that DNA from these extinct groups can be found in many human populations today.

In particular, everyone whose primary ancestry was outside Africa carries some Neanderthal DNA, while many people from Asia - especially South-East Asia - have DNA from the mysterious Denisovans. Some of this DNA may have been advantageous for modern humans.

However, these studies were limited to small pieces of DNA. "Most people have focused on looking at single nucleotide changes," says Evan Eichler at the University of Washington in Seattle. This means just one "letter" of a gene has been altered.

Comment: See also:

And check out SOTT radio's:

And thus, all should see instantly what 'government' actually is; and yet they, save SOTTypes, remain (as always) blind. R.C.

Rowan Cocoan

.. .. do them Royals still feast on them assorted fetal tissues at mid day meals?

Jibrish

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Jibrish

The Spanish government along its geoscientists didn't managed this eruption properly. They let this situation to develop, causing considerable...

Wyler69

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Jibrish

Science & Technology

China estimated to gain 600 million 5G subscribers by 2025

NASA pinpoints the cause of recent record carbon dioxide spike

PragerU features Stephen Meyer in new video: Evolution - bacteria to Beethoven

World's largest geode formed when Mediterranean sea disappeared

Doctors' beliefs influence patients' pain, study finds

Indian PM Modi speaks out against anti-technology sentiment, says AI can be harnessed to benefit mankind

Hubble captures an asteroid 'photobombing' the Crab Nebula

Mysterious newly discovered virus DEFIES EVOLUTION, current scientific understanding

Talented slime mold with no brain and '720 sexes' unveiled at Paris zoo

Long strand of DNA from Neanderthals found in Melanesians

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