Welcome to Sott.net
Thu, 30 Sep 2021
The World for People who Think

Science & Technology
Map

Attention

Science and Consensus

Willis Eschenbach
Watts Up with That
Tue, 22 Jun 2021 17:14 UTC
Pastafarian God
© Watts Up with That
I got to thinking about how science progresses. Science is a funny beast. It's not a "thing", it's a process. The process works like this:
  • One or more people make a falsifiable claim about how the physical world works. They support it with logic, math, computer code, examples, experience, experimental results, thought experiments, or other substantiating backup information.
  • They make all of that information public, so others can replicate their work.
  • Other people try to find things that are wrong with the original claim, including errors in the logic, math, computer code, examples, and the rest.
  • If someone can show the original claim is wrong, that claim is falsified and rejected.
  • If nobody can show the claim is wrong, then it is provisionally accepted as scientifically valid ... but only provisionally, because at any time new information of any kind may show that the claim actually is wrong.
Note that there is two things that must be present for this process we call "science" to work. The first is total transparency. If the author of the claim refuses to provide the data, computer code, or any part of the supporting evidence, the claim cannot be either replicated or falsified and thus it is not a part of science.

The second necessary component is that the claim must be falsifiable. If I say "There is a Pastafarian God who controls the universe through his noodly appendages", (image above) no one can falsify that statement ... so it's not a scientific claim.
      Read More...
Info

There's more to genes than DNA


University of Bath
Mon, 21 Jun 2021 16:31 UTC
Biologists at the University of Bath and the University of Vienna in Austria have discovered 71 new imprinted genes in the mouse genome.

Genetic imprinting
© University of Bath
Genetic imprinting - genes that are more active when they come from one parent than the other - impacts health at all stages of life.
Biologists at the Universities of Bath and Vienna have discovered 71 new 'imprinted' genes in the mouse genome, a finding that takes them a step closer to unravelling some of the mysteries of epigenetics - an area of science that describes how genes are switched on (and off) in different cells at different stages in development and adulthood.

To understand the importance of imprinted genes to inheritance, we need to step back and ask how inheritance works in general. Most of the thirty trillion cells in a person's body contain genes that come from both their mother and father, with each parent contributing one version of each gene. The unique combination of genes goes part of the way to making an individual unique. Usually, each gene in a pair is equally active or inactive in a given cell. This is not the case for imprinted genes. These genes - which make up less than one percent of the total of 20,000+ genes - tend to be more active (sometimes much more active) in one parental version than the other.

Until now, researchers were aware of around 130 well-documented imprinted genes in the mouse genome - the new additions take this number to over 200. Professor Tony Perry, who led the research from the Department of Biology & Biochemistry at Bath, said: "Imprinting affects an important family of genes, with different implications for health and disease, so the seventy-plus new ones add an important piece of the jigsaw."
      Read More...
Butterfly

Butterflies cross the Sahara in longest-known insect migration

University of Reading
Phys.org
Mon, 21 Jun 2021 12:00 UTC
butterfly
© cc by 3point0 Jean-Pol Grandmont
A Painted Lady butterfly.
A species of butterfly found in Sub-Saharan Africa is able to migrate thousands of miles to Europe, crossing the Saharan Desert, in years when weather conditions are favorable, scientists have found.

The striking Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui) butterfly has been shown for the first time to be capable of making the 12,000-14,000 km round trip — the longest insect migration known so far — in greater numbers, when wetter conditions in the desert help the plants on which it lays eggs.

The international research team's findings increase understanding of how insects, including pollinators, pests and the diseases they carry could spread between continents in future as climate change alters seasonal conditions.


Comment: Indeed. We are not seeing 'global warming' as mainstream science continues to claim, although this slogan is slowly being phased out because it's undeniable that, amongst other Earth Changes, our planet cooling, and that includes increasingly erratic seasons that are wreaking havoc with life on our planet: Recap: The changing jet stream and global cooling


Comment: It would appear that it's a similar story for the Monarch butterflies over in the Americas. As noted in Millions of butterflies flying to Scotland in 'once-in-a-decade' phenomenon:
Every September an incredible migration phenomenon begins. Clouds of stripy orange monarch butterflies set off on a 2,500km journey, travelling from southern Canada to warmer climes in southern California and Mexico. Come spring they follow the milkweed blossom and travel back up north. No butterfly completes the entire trip: after flying many hundreds of kilometres the female butterflies lay eggs and pass the baton to the next generation. Now a new study, published in Biology Letters, reveals how these amazing insects make use of the weather to aid their journey.

Miniaturised radio transmitters were attached to the butterflies and their journey tracked using a series of automated telemetry towers. The results show how monarchs soar high to take advantage of strong tailwinds, powering along at up to 31kph. Those that have to travel furthest seem to travel fastest, but all butterflies took rest days every now and then. Warmer temperatures also help (though only up to a certain point) and on a good day they managed to travel over 100km. Light rain didn't seem to have any adverse effect, but the researchers note they didn't track any individuals during heavy rain events. Perhaps they shelter and make up lost time later?
See also:

      Read More...
X

Scientists find most PCR test results do not indicate infectious virus, question test's status as "Gold Standard"

Will Jones
Lockdown Skeptics
Sun, 20 Jun 2021 19:02 UTC
PCR machine
© unknown
PCR Machine
How often do we hear that the PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test is the "gold standard" for detecting COVID-19 infection and thus for controlling and containing a COVID-19 epidemic? To question the accuracy of this test is supposedly part of the "misinformation" sceptics spread, which Ofcom, being guided by biased, Big Tech-funded, activist organisation Full Fact, aims to suppress.

In reality, serious questions about the proper use of PCR tests, particularly in mass screening programmes, have been asked since the technique was invented in 1985 and predate the Covid pandemic.

Since early 2020, there have been concerns that defining a "case" of COVID-19 merely in terms of a positive PCR test - with no consideration of clinical symptoms or the cycle threshold (Ct) of the test, which indicates the viral load of the patient - debases the concept of a clinical case and exaggerates the prevalence of the disease, fuelling alarm.

The issue was raised by Harvard epidemiologist Michael Mina and colleagues in the Lancet in February 2021, where they concluded that the cycle thresholds in reported test data were such that only a quarter to a half of positive PCR tests were likely to indicate the presence of infectious COVID-19. The rest, they argued, were detecting post-infectious viral particles, meaning relying on PCR testing was overstating the number of infectious cases of COVID-19 by a factor of between two and four.

Comment: See also:

      Read More...
Info

Supernova seen three times due gravitational lensing

Andy Tomaswick
Universe Today
Mon, 21 Jun 2021 18:34 UTC
MAC J0138.02155
© Rodney, Brammer et al.
Image of the MAC J0138.02155 cluster and gravitationally lensed MRG-M0138 galaxy showing the locations of the three observed instances of the supernova (SN1-3) and the expected location of the fourth instance (SN4), estimated to appear around 2037.
It is hard for humans to wrap their heads around the fact that there are galaxies so far away that the light coming from them can be warped in a way that they actually experience a type of time delay. But that is exactly what is happening with extreme forms of gravitational lensing, such as those that give us the beautiful images of Einstein rings. In fact, the time dilation around some of these galaxies can be so extreme that the light from a single event, such as a supernova, can actually show up on Earth at dramatically different times. That is exactly what a team led by Dr. Steven Rodney at the University of South Carolina and Dr. Gabriel Brammer of the University of Copenhagen has found. Except three copies of this supernova have already appeared - and the team thinks it will show up again one more time, 20 years from now.

Finding such a supernova is important not just for its mind bending qualities - it also helps to settle an important debate in the cosmological community. The rate of expansion of the universe has outpaced the rate expected when calculated from the cosmic microwave background radiation. Most commonly, this cosmological conundrum is solved by invoking "dark energy" - a shadowy force that is supposedly responsible for increasing the acceleration rate. But scientists don't actually know what dark energy is, and to figure it out they need a better model of the physics of the early universe.

One way to get that better model is to find an event that is actively being distorted through a gravitational lens. Importantly - the same event must show up at two separate, distinct times in order to provide input to a calculation about the ratio of the distance between the galaxy doing the lensing and the background galaxy that was the source of the event.
      Read More...
Microscope 1

Another language found in life: Immune signaling


Evolution News
Mon, 21 Jun 2021 16:51 UTC
immune system

Your immune system detects invaders, and works to eliminate them.
Begin with a remarkable fact: the body's immune system finds specific targets and mounts a coordinated response to eliminate them. That much is common knowledge. Everyone knows why this happens, too: without it, the organism would die. Inquiring minds, though, want to know how the immune system does it. Scientists at UCLA believe they have discovered the Rosetta Stone of the immune system: a molecular "language" that activates the body's defenses to mount a coordinated and accurate response to pathogens.

Imagine being a lonely macrophage wandering about blindly in the body. It is able to "eat" bad cells, but would be unaware of nearby enemies needing to be eaten. It would be like a soldier without orders. A soldier needs to read or hear what to do, when to do it, and where to do it. Essentially, the soldier relies on communication from the chain of command. In the army, that communication is done using human language or codes. What language or code informs a macrophage that it is time to eat the enemy? And what form does this language take?
      Read More...
Blue Planet

The 27.5-million-year cycle of catastrophic geologic activity

New York University
Phys.org
Fri, 18 Jun 2021 12:00 UTC
27.5-million-year cycle
© New York University
Geologic activity on Earth appears to follow a 27.5-million-year cycle, giving the planet a 'pulse,' according to a new study published in the journal Geoscience Frontiers.

"Many geologists believe that geological events are random over time. But our study provides statistical evidence for a common cycle, suggesting that these geologic events are correlated and not random," said Michael Rampino, a geologist and professor in New York University's Department of Biology, as well as the study's lead author.

Over the past five decades, researchers have proposed cycles of major geological events — including volcanic activity and mass extinctions on land and sea — ranging from roughly 26 to 36 million years. But early work on these correlations in the geological record was hampered by limitations in the age-dating of geologic events, which prevented scientists from conducting quantitative investigations.

Comment: For further insight into how this strengthens the case for cyclical cometary events as the cause of catastrophic "geologic events", like volcanic eruptions, see:

      Read More...
Better Earth

Methane munching microbes crucial role in preventing escape of gas into atmosphere

David Nield
Science Alert
Fri, 18 Jun 2021 12:00 UTC
carbonate
© Schmidt Ocean Institute
A carbonate rock chimney.
One of the key steps to mitigating climate change is to better understand the multitude of factors that affect our planet's temperature - and a new study reveals the important role that ocean microbes play in the process.

Microbes are responsible for most of Earth's naturally produced methane, a key greenhouse gas that contributes to the warming of the atmosphere. But as well as producing it, microbes also consume it, keeping it trapped in the ocean.

The new research highlights how microbes in carbonate rocks such as limestone and dolomite play a crucial role in helping to regulate Earth's temperature by consuming methane and stopping it from escaping into the open air - a type of methane sink that has so far not been extensively studied.


Comment: One needs to be cautious regarding these claims of 'regulating' Earth's temperature, because, after all, mainstream science still pushes the debunked theory of 'man-made global warming'. It seems that the temperature of our planet is likely the result of a number of factors, some of which cause Earth to undergo cyclical ice ages, and this article fails to detail how critical to Earth's temperature this activity really is: Volcanoes, Earthquakes And The 3,600 Year Comet Cycle


Comment: See also:

      Read More...
Sherlock

Hubble Space Telescope stops working, attempts to restart fail, still down days later - NASA


Phys.org
Sat, 19 Jun 2021 12:00 UTC
Hubble Jupiter

This photograph taken by the Hubble Space Telescope on August 25, 2020 shows Jupiter and its moon Europa, captured when the planet was 653 million kilometers (405 million miles) from Earth.
The Hubble Space Telescope, which has been peering into the universe for more than 30 years, has been down for the past few days, NASA said Friday.

The problem is a payload computer that stopped working last Sunday, the US space agency said.

It insisted the telescope itself and scientific instruments that accompany it are "in good health."

Comment: Another fail for NASA? NASA's 'Mole' officially fails Mars mission, follows two years of troubleshooting

See also:

      Read More...
Telescope

Mysterious object blotted out a giant star for 200 days

Nadia Drake
National Geographic
Wed, 16 Jun 2021 20:53 UTC
mystery star blotted out artist impression
© National Geographic
An artist's impression of the star named VVV-WIT-08 being eclipsed
Scientists suggest whatever eclipsed the star was many times larger and had a hard edge.

Something huge and opaque caused a star in our galaxy to dim, and astronomers are struggling to explain the phenomenon.

Stars may twinkle, but they don't just vanish — so when a distant, giant star pulled a disappearing act for about 200 days, it took astronomers by surprise.

Now, roughly a decade later, astronomers have sifted through a variety of possible explanations — and they still have no idea what's responsible for blotting out nearly all of the star's light.
      Read More...
Amazon Smile
Revolt! T-shirts