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Big Rev-eel: Scientists un-loch mystery of Scotland's mythical creature Nessie

Hannah Sparks
NY Post
Thu, 05 Sep 2019 19:18 UTC
loch ness
© Wikimedia
Itadakimasu, and bring on the sushi!

Researchers now believe that the mythic monster Loch Ness may not be a prehistoric vestige, but giant, meaty, delicious eels.

Scientists from New Zealand ventured to the the UK to confirm once and for all the origins of the fabled creature, and rule out the possibility of it being other (also delicious) aquatic creatures.

As part of their quest, they examined DNA from the monster's namesake lake in the Scottish Highlands. Their analysis showed no signs of any of the large animals once thought to be Nessie, such as the beastly looking aquatic plesiosaur — which may have tasted similar to gamey, mild alligator meat; or, if the cavemen were lucky, like turtle (do yourself a favor and try turtle soup).

"We can't find any evidence of a creature that's remotely related to that in our environmental-DNA sequence data," says Professor Neil Gemmell of New Zealand's University of Otago.
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Cloud Grey

The gas of life and the climate

Rudolf Huber
The Methanist
Thu, 05 Sep 2019 11:08 UTC
methane gas
I was a bookish child. While others honed their skills on the round leather, I devoured encyclopedias. You read right. At the time, I thought that if I read a certain number of pages from the biggest encyclopedia every day, I would have read everything one day and would hence be all-knowing. I always wanted to know everything there is to know.

Of course, that's a very childish dream. Life taught me many things, One among them is that in this day and age it is utterly impossible to know everything there is to know.

Then a friend of the family bought me the biggest illustrated encyclopedia of life money could buy at the time. I learned about the basics of life, how life evolved from simple bacteria to complex cells and how it all was based on one primordial element that's present in all life as we know it, no matter how exotic it may seem to us - CARBON.

That made me curious so I asked if there could be non-carbon-based life. There was no internet I could query at the time so I was petty alone with my question. In the meantime, I learned a good deal more about carbon and how essential it is for life.

Today, carbon has become enemy number one as the IPCC and a whole plethora of other institutions hold it responsible for the warming of the Earth. Oh sorry, its called Climate Change now.

Comment: See also:

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Fireball

'Dune drops' on Mars rich in olivine may provide clues about planet's history

Matt Williams
Universe Today
Wed, 04 Sep 2019 12:00 UTC
mars dune drops
Mars is well-known for being a dry and arid place, where dusty red sand dunes are prevalent and water exists almost entirely in the form of ice and permafrost. An upside to this, however, is the fact that these conditions are the reason why Mars' many surface features are so well preserved. And as missions like the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) have shown, this allows for some pretty interesting finds.

Consider the picture recently taken by Curiosity's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) instrument while orbiting above the Copernicus Crater on Mars. This image showed raindrop-like features that are actually signs of sand dunes that are rich in olivine. These same types of dunes exist on Earth but are very rare since this mineral weathers quickly and turns to clay in wet environments.

Olivine is used by geologists to describe a group of rock-forming minerals that are typically found in igneous rocks. This mineral is so-named because of its green color, which is due to its chemical composition - silicate-based (SiO4) and bonded with either Magnesium or Iron (Mg2SiO4; Fe2SiO4). On Earth, it is generally found in dark-colored igneous rocks and is one of the first minerals to crystalize during the slow cooling of magma.

Comment: It's interesting that olivine is often found in processes featuring intense heat (and possibly electric); from the cooling of magma on Earth, its presence in asteroids and meteorites, as well as on the moon, which is scarred by meteorite impacts.

See also:

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Rainbow

Eminent scientist's 160-year-old theories aid discovery of new wave-form of light


PhysOrg
Tue, 03 Sep 2019 02:01 UTC
James Maxwell
© Stefano Bianchetti/Corbis via Getty ImagesPortrait of James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879). Scottish physicist.
A previously unknown type of light wave has been discovered by researchers, based on the pioneering work of a 19th century Scottish scientist.

Equations developed by renowned mathematician and physicist James Clerk Maxwell have helped to reveal how crystals can be manipulated to produce a distinctive form of light wave.

The phenomena — recently named Dyakonov-Voigt waves — could have a range of useful applications, such as improving biosensors used to screen blood samples or developing fibre optic circuits that transfer data more efficiently.

Scientists and engineers from the University of Edinburgh and Pennsylvania State University made the discovery by analysing how light — which travels in the form of waves — interacts with certain naturally occurring or man-made crystals.
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Ice Cube

New discovery shows how T. rex kept its brain cool

John Pickrell
National Geographic
Wed, 04 Sep 2019 22:12 UTC
t rex
© Brian Engh/ dontmesswithdinosaurs.comThis artist's reconstruction imagines late Cretaceous North America in infrared, as the tyrannosaur Daspletosaurus and the crocodilian Deinosuchus approach the corpse of a horned dinosaur. Regions on the animals' skulls radiate excess heat, an adaptation that may have helped keep their brains cool.
To ward off overheating, large animals such as elephants and rhinos had to evolve strategies to keep cool. Dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus rex likely faced the same problem — and new research finds that the huge carnivores solved it by developing giant air conditioners in their heads.

Researchers led by Casey Holliday looked at large holes in the tops of carnivorous dinosaur skulls called dorsotemporal fenestrae. Careful anatomical study revealed that the cavities probably contained tissue rich with fat and blood vessels.

These structures may have been useful for dumping heat into the environment when dinosaurs were running too hot and absorbing heat when they got cold, the team reports in the journal The Anatomical Record.

Comment: See also: Also check out SOTT radio's: The Truth Perspective: Are Cells the Intelligent Designers? Why Creationists and Darwinists Are Both Wrong

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Snowflake

Protein identified that lets creatures sense cold


University of Michigan
Thu, 29 Aug 2019 22:52 UTC
Ice Crystal
© University of Michigan
Ann Arbor — Researchers have identified a receptor protein that can detect when winter is coming.

The findings, published Aug. 29 in the journal Cell, reveal the first known cold-sensing protein to respond to extreme cold.

"Clearly, nerves in the skin can sense cold. But no one has been able to pinpoint exactly how they sense it," said Shawn Xu, a faculty member at the University of Michigan Life Sciences Institute and senior author of the study. "Now, I think we have an answer."

When environmental temperatures drop to uncomfortable, and even dangerous levels, receptor proteins within the sensory nerves in the skin perceive the change, and they relay that information to the brain. This is true for organisms from humans all the way down to the tiny, millimeter-long worms that researchers study in Xu's lab at the Life Sciences Institute: the model system Caenorhabditis elegans.

"When you step outside and you sense it's too cold, you're going to take action to get back to a warmer environment as soon as you can," said Xu, who is also a professor in the U-M Medical School's Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology. "When the worms sense cold, they also engage in avoidance behavior — moving away from cold temperatures, just like humans."

But unlike humans or other complex organisms, C. elegans have a simple, well-mapped genome and a short lifespan, making them a valuable model system for studying sensory responses.
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Info

Von Braun Space Station due for 2025

Paul Wallis
Digital Journal
Tue, 03 Sep 2019 07:51 UTC
The wheel-like Von Braun Space Station, which is based on the International Space Station, has a lot of new tech, and some not-so-new tech. It's to be a mix of space hotel and seminar and educational centre.
Von Braun Space Station
© Picture courtesy The Gateway FoundationThe proposed space hotel designed by The Gateway Foundation.
The large "cruise liner in space" is mainly for accommodation, and perhaps the ultimate available upmarket corporate events, etc. The Von Braun Space Station is designed by the Gateway Foundation, an interesting mix of obvious promotional zeal and what looks very like idealism.

I was looking for some background for the Gateway Foundation but didn't find any conventional corporate info. The actual ownership and leadership include a few notables who'd have the right to some credibility.

The idea of a luxury space station isn't new in theory, but as a project, it's a whole new ball game or several. You can see the technical specifications on the Gateway page.
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Robot

"It scares me to death": Coding errors in sex robots make them prone to violence and injuring humans

Tyler Durden
Zerohedge
Fri, 30 Aug 2019 22:05 UTC
sex doll
He's the whistleblower that the future deserves and that the future needs: one expert is sounding the alarm on sex robots, according to The Daily Star.

Oh, and his name happens to be Brick Dollbanger (Yes, it's his real name. Yes, we checked several sources). Dollbanger, a doll collector, has said that "violent repercussions" are possible if the sex robot industry isn't regulated properly. He says that one simple "coding error" could turn sex robots against their owners.

"It scares me to death, it's a machine and it's always going to be a machine," Dollbanger said. He has close ties to doll manufacturers Realbotix and Abyss.

He continued, describing in horrifying detail, his vision for the future of the sex robot industry:
"If you've watched the movies, Ex-Machina, because I honestly believe synthetics are going to look very similar to that movie. It's not going to be something you can hit with a pipe and it's going to fall apart."
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Microscope 2

Scientists confirm new mineral discovery never before encountered in nature

Peter Dockrill
Science Alert
Mon, 02 Sep 2019 00:00 UTC
Wedderburn meteorite
© Museums Victoria/CC BY 4.0The Wedderburn meteorite
It was found along the side of a road in a remote Australian gold rush town. In the old days, Wedderburn was a hotspot for prospectors - it occasionally still is - but nobody there had ever seen a nugget quite like this one.

The Wedderburn meteorite, found just north-east of the town in 1951, was a small 210-gram chunk of strange-looking space rock that fell out of the sky. For decades, scientists have been trying to decipher its secrets, and researchers just decoded another.

In a new study led by Caltech mineralogist Chi Ma, scientists analysed the Wedderburn meteorite and verified the first natural occurrence of what they call 'edscottite': a rare form of iron-carbide mineral that's never been found in nature.
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Satellite

India's Chandrayaan-2 moon orbiter releases Vikram lunar lander

Meghan Bartels
Space.com
Mon, 02 Sep 2019 10:09 UTC
Chandrayaan moon orbiter
© India Space Research OrganisationOn Sept. 2, the Indian Space Research Organisation's Chandrayaan-2 moon orbiter successfully released its Vikram lander in lunar orbit as seen in this illustrated depiction.
The two halves of India's moon mission have parted ways in preparation for the tensest moment of the entire endeavor.

Today (Sept. 2), the Chandrayaan-2 mission split into two separate spacecraft: an orbiter that will circle the moon's poles for about a year and a lander that will, later this week, attempt India's first touchdown on the moon.

"All the systems of Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter and Lander are healthy," Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) officials said in a statement.

The separation occurred around 3:45 a.m. EDT (745 GMT). So far, both spacecraft are faring well in their separate orbits, ISRO officials added.

The Chandrayaan-2 mission launched in July, taking the slow road to the moon, where it arrived in orbit on Aug. 20. Since then, mission control staff at ISRO conducted a series of orbital adjustments to put the spacecraft on track for the south-pole-oriented mission.

The orbiter component of the mission builds directly on the legacy of India's first moon mission, Chandrayaan-1, which carried the instrument that identified water ice buried in dark craters near the lunar south pole. The spacecraft carries eight different science instruments onboard, including two cameras, devices to identify different elements in the moon's regolith and to calculate the amount of water ice with it, and an instrument that will measure X-rays emitted by the sun.

Comment: See also:

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