Science & Technology News

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by GordMay

PCR tests are not prone to false positives, despite what people say on Facebook, experts say
Myth persists because it fits into conspiracy theory that 'entire pandemic is a hoax'
More ➥ https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/pcr-t...lity-1.6034273

Indeed. I posted about this a few months ago. PCR tests give a certain number of false negatives but a vanishingly small number of false positives; this has been well known by science for over a year. What nonsense people are willing to believe in order to hold up some narrative never ceases to amaze.

[GordMay]

China maintains 'artificial sun' at 120 million Celsius for over 100 seconds, setting new world record
China’s 'artificial sun' nuclear fusion reactor has set a new world record, after running at 216 million degrees Fahrenheit (120million°C), for 100 seconds, according to state media.
It also achieved a peak temperature of 288million°F (160million°C) – more than ten times hotter than the sun.
More ➥ https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202105/1224755.shtml

[Talk Story]

Originally Posted by GordMay

[SIZE=3][B][I]China maintains 'artificial sun' at 120 million Celsius ...according to state media.
More ➥ https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202105/1224755.shtml

Am I missing something ... if it is according to state media and the state is China, than this is propoganda (communist chinese propoganda). Why is Chinese state propoganda being shared/celebrated here?

And yes, I am aware I do not have to click on the link and look at this or any other subject posted here.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Talk Story

Am I missing something ... if it is according to state media and the state is China, than then this is propoganda propaganda (communist chinese propoganda propaganda). Why is Chinese state propoganda propaganda being shared/celebrated here? ...

I shared this, because it's important scientific news.
As noted, in the news report [I linked], “Achieving a plasma temperature above 100 million C is one of the key challenges to harness nuclear fusion. At the end of 2020, South Korea reached 100 million C for 20 seconds.”
“The experiment of EAST* is part of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) [1] facility [in France], a global big science project second only to the International Space Station in size, and is being jointly constructed by China, the EU, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the US.”
If you don’t believe that the Chinese actually accomplished what they claim, please present evidence, to that effect.

* Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST)

[1] ‘ITER’ ➥ https://www.iter.org/

More about ➥ https://www.universetoday.com/140540...llion-degrees/

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Talk Story

Am I missing something ... if it is according to state media and the state is China, than this is propoganda (communist chinese propoganda). Why is Chinese state propoganda being shared/celebrated here?

It's science; most 'big' science is done with international cooperation. If the findings were BS, other scientists would call it.

You might not have noticed, but China is now part of the world. They're not some inscrutable isolated hidden kingdom like N Korea.

[GordMay]

Some Science news, about which Talk Story might be more approving:
“Taking a bite out of frog tooth evolution: Amphibian group has lost teeth more than 20 times”
The first comprehensive study of tooth evolution in frogs is bringing the group’s dental history into focus. Florida Museum of Natural History researchers analyzed CT scans of nearly every living amphibian genus to reveal that frogs have lost teeth over 20 times during their evolution, more than any other vertebrate group.
➥ https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/sc...than-20-times/

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Talk Story

Am I missing something ... if it is according to state media and the state is China, than this is propoganda (communist chinese propoganda). Why is Chinese state propoganda being shared/celebrated here?

And yes, I am aware I do not have to click on the link and look at this or any other subject posted here.

For Pete's sake, just because something is published in state media, doesn't necessarily make it propaganda.

The Chinese fusion reactor is part of the International Experimental Reactor Project, a joint project between The U.S., EU, Russia, China and some other states to advance the basic science and engineering of fusion power, based on the Russian breakthrough configuration known as the "Tokomak". It's being observed by scientists from all these countries, and the technology is being shared.

See: https://gadgets.ndtv.com/science/new...riment-2453713

Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER

The main experimental reactor for this project is being built in France. It's called "the world's biggest science experiment", but only a few tens of billions are being invested in it. This is ridiculously little compared to the importance of this project; the world should increase funding and try to accelerate it.

The world is still far away, probably decades away, from a practical commercial fusion reactor. But nuclear fusion is the holy grail of clean energy. If we can get it to work, then we really don't need anything else -- no wind farms, no solar, no nuclear fission, nothing. The fuels involved don't need to be mined, are plentiful, and produce gigantic yields, about one order of magnitude better than nuclear fission at its best, and more than 4 orders of magnitude greater than than the theoretical maximum energy density of chemical fuels, like fossil fuels. See:

"On a per mass, or per nucleon basis, fusion wins hands-down: one gram of deuterium results in 1012 J of energy, or 275 million kcal. Fission gives a comparatively small 20 million kcal per gram of 235U. So fusion is over ten times as potent. Keep in mind that chemical energy like that in fossil fuels is capped around 10 kcal/g. Note the conspicuous absence of the word million. On the energy scale, then, nuclear in either form is outrageously more potent than chemical energy."
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/01/nuclear-fusion/

It means that one tonne of deuterium -- heavy water -- can give more energy than 10,000 tonnes of the ideal chemical fuel, or tens of thousands of tonnes of oil. If we can crack this, then energy will be basically free and climate change will be a quaint memory. I don't expect to see it in my lifetime, but I think for sure it will be this century.

[GordMay]

Oxygen levels have dropped in hundreds of lakes in the United States and Europe over the last four decades, a new study found.
Researchers examined the temperature and dissolved oxygen [the amount of oxygen in the water], in nearly 400 lakes, and found that declines were widespread.

Their study [1], published Wednesday in the journal Nature, found dissolved oxygen fell 5.5 % in surface waters of these lakes and 18.6% in deep waters.
The authors said their findings suggest that warming temperatures and decreased water clarity from human activity are causing the oxygen decline.

Dissolved oxygen losses in Earth’s water systems have been reported before. A 2017 study [2] of oxygen levels in the world’s oceans showed a 2% decline since 1960. But less was known about lakes, which lost two to nine times as much oxygen as oceans, the new study's authors said.

About a quarter of the lakes examined actually showed increasing oxygen in surface waters, which is a bad sign, because it's likely attributable to increased algal blooms [sudden growth of blue green algae].
In these lakes, dissolved oxygen was “very low” in deep waters, and was unlivable for many species.

[1] “Widespread deoxygenation of temperate lakes” ~ By Stephen F. Jane et al
➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03550-y

[2] “Decline in global oceanic oxygen content during the past five decades” ~ by Sunke Schmidtko et al
➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/nature21399

[GordMay]

COVID research: a year of scientific milestones
Nature waded through the literature on the coronavirus — and summarized key papers as they appeared.
Here ➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00502-w

For continued coverage of important COVID-19 developments, go to Nature’s news section.
Nature’s news section ➥ https://www.nature.com/news

[GordMay]

Researchers claim they have sequenced the entirety of the human genome — including the missing parts

An international team of scientists says it has sequenced and assembled the entirety of the human genome, including parts that were missed in the sequencing of the first human genome two decades ago.

The claim, if confirmed, surpasses the achievement laid out by leaders from the Human Genome Project and Celera Genomics on the White House lawn in 2000, when they announced the sequencing of the first draft human genome. That historic draft, and subsequent human DNA sequences, have all missed about 8% of the genome.
The sequencing of the new genome fills in these gaps using new technology. It has different limitations, however, including the type of cell line that the researchers used in order to speed up their effort.

The work was detailed May 27 in a pre-print [1], meaning it has not yet been peer-reviewed.

More ➥ https://www.statnews.com/2021/06/01/...missing-parts/

[1] “The complete sequence of a human genome” ~ by Sergey Nurk et al
➥ https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1....445798v1.full

“DNA Sequencing Technologies Key to the Human Genome Project” ~ by Heidi Chial, Ph.D. [2008]
➥ https://www.nature.com/scitable/topi...the-human-828/

“Human Genome Project FAQ” ➥ https://www.genome.gov/human-genome-...Completion-FAQ

[GordMay]

Strong momentum in electric vehicle markets despite the pandemic

A recent report from the International Energy Agency [‘Global Electric Vehicle Outlook’] stated roughly 3 million new electric cars were registered last year, a record amount and a 41% rise compared to 2019. This jump pushed the total number of electric cars on the road to over 10 million, a figure supplemented by approximately 1 million electric buses, vans and heavy trucks.
The rise in electric car sales in 2020 came even as the worldwide automobile market contracted by 16% due to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

The IEA said consumer spending on electric cars in 2020 totaled $120 billion, a 50% increase compared to 2019, with government support measures designed to encourage electric vehicle take-up coming in at $14 billion, suggesting that sales are increasingly being driven more by consumer choice.

Looking ahead, the IEA says the number of electric cars, buses, vans and heavy trucks on roads — its projection does not include two- and three-wheeled electric vehicles — is expected to hit 145 million by 2030.

“Global Electric Vehicle Outlook 2021” ~ IEA
➥ https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2021

[GordMay]

Sharks were almost wiped out in a mysterious extinction 19 million years ago, new study [1] finds
Scientists studying ocean floor sediments have discovered a previously unknown mass shark extinction that may point to an unknown period of climate change or other significant environmental catastrophe.
About 19 million years ago, there was a major extinction in open ocean sharks where sharks were about 10 times, maybe even 100 times more abundant in the ocean than they are today

More ➥ https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/jun-...inds-1.6052403

[1] “An early Miocene extinction in pelagic sharks” ~ by Elizabeth C. Sibert & Leah D. Rubin
➥ https://science.sciencemag.org/content/372/6546/1105

[SailOar]

On the Verge of Extinction, These Whales Are Also Shrinking

• Most of the 360 North Atlantic right whales alive today bear scars from entanglements in fishing gear and collisions with speeding ships
• Many of the imperiled whales are significantly smaller than earlier generations of their species
• The animals’ average lengths have declined by roughly 7 percent since 1981
• “We saw 5 and even 10-year-old whales that were about the size of 2-year-old whales,” Dr. Stewart said. In one case, an 11-year-old whale was the same size as a 1½-year-old whale.
• Lobster traps and crab pots prevent entangled whales from diving deep enough to find food
• Whales who don’t drown or starve right away will often drag gear for several years
• Researchers recommendation is to significantly reduce the amount of rope-based fishing gear and implement ship speed limits in the North Atlantic

The research was published in the journal Current Biology

[GordMay]

Experiment evaluates the effect of human decisions on climate reconstructions ~ by University of Cambridge

“The first double-blind experiment [1] analyzing the role of human decision-making in climate reconstructions has found that it can lead to substantially different results.
The experiment, designed and run by researchers from the University of Cambridge, had multiple research groups from around the world use the same raw tree-ring data to reconstruct temperature changes over the past 2,000 years.
While each of the reconstructions clearly showed that recent warming due to anthropogenic climate change is unprecedented in the past two thousand years, there were notable differences in variance, amplitude and sensitivity, which can be attributed to decisions made by the researchers who built the individual reconstructions ...
... While the information contained in tree rings remains constant, humans are the variables: they may use different techniques or choose a different subset of data to build their reconstruction," said Büntgen, who is based at Cambridge's Department of Geography, and is also affiliated with the CzechGlobe Centre in Brno, Czech Republic. "With any reconstruction, there's a question of uncertainty ranges: how certain you are about a certain result. A lot of work has gone into trying to quantify uncertainties in a statistical way, but what hasn't been studied is the role of decision-making.
It's not the case that there is one single truth—every decision we make is subjective to a greater or lesser extent. Scientists aren't robots, and we don't want them to be, but it's important to learn where the decisions are made and how they affect the outcome ..."

More about ➥ https://phys.org/news/2021-06-effect...tructions.html

The study:
[1] “The influence of decision-making in tree ring-based climate reconstructions” ~ by Ulf Büntgen et al
➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-23627-6

[CatNewBee]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

For Pete's sake, just because something is published in state media, doesn't necessarily make it propaganda.

The Chinese fusion reactor is part of the International Experimental Reactor Project, a joint project between The U.S., EU, Russia, China and some other states to advance the basic science and engineering of fusion power, based on the Russian breakthrough configuration known as the "Tokomak". It's being observed by scientists from all these countries, and the technology is being shared.

See: https://gadgets.ndtv.com/science/new...riment-2453713

Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER

The main experimental reactor for this project is being built in France. It's called "the world's biggest science experiment", but only a few tens of billions are being invested in it. This is ridiculously little compared to the importance of this project; the world should increase funding and try to accelerate it.

The world is still far away, probably decades away, from a practical commercial fusion reactor. But nuclear fusion is the holy grail of clean energy. If we can get it to work, then we really don't need anything else -- no wind farms, no solar, no nuclear fission, nothing. The fuels involved don't need to be mined, are plentiful, and produce gigantic yields, about one order of magnitude better than nuclear fission at its best, and more than 4 orders of magnitude greater than than the theoretical maximum energy density of chemical fuels, like fossil fuels. See:

"On a per mass, or per nucleon basis, fusion wins hands-down: one gram of deuterium results in 1012 J of energy, or 275 million kcal. Fission gives a comparatively small 20 million kcal per gram of 235U. So fusion is over ten times as potent. Keep in mind that chemical energy like that in fossil fuels is capped around 10 kcal/g. Note the conspicuous absence of the word million. On the energy scale, then, nuclear in either form is outrageously more potent than chemical energy."
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/01/nuclear-fusion/

It means that one tonne of deuterium -- heavy water -- can give more energy than 10,000 tonnes of the ideal chemical fuel, or tens of thousands of tonnes of oil. If we can crack this, then energy will be basically free and climate change will be a quaint memory. I don't expect to see it in my lifetime, but I think for sure it will be this century.

No, climate will continue to change. It always has and always will.