Science & Technology News

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Sperm whales communicate in clicks, which they make in rhythmic series, called codas.

In what may be the largest interspecies communication effort in history, scientists plan to use machine learning [AI] to try to decode what these animals say to one another.

Initial results:

• "I wish they'd stop leaving nets all over the damn ocean"
• "We're not going to converse with them til Japan and Iceland stop hunting and killing us"

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

Initial results:

• "I wish they'd stop leaving nets all over the damn ocean"
• "We're not going to converse with them til Japan and Iceland stop hunting and killing us"

Look rather to Denmark to stop killing pilot whales.

[ImaginaryNumber]

Originally Posted by newhaul

Yes but one problem with the authors. They'd only seem to know that the Orca is not a whale but rather the largest breed of dolphin. It is also well known that dolphins and sharks are not exactly friendly.

Originally Posted by newhaul

Look rather to Denmark to stop killing pilot whales.

Ahem...

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by ImaginaryNumber

Ahem...

You rang

Denmark aka the Faroe Islands.

Iceland stopped hunting whales in 2019. Grey realized they can make a lot more money in tourism. Via whale watching tours.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by ImaginaryNumber

Ahem...

I did not place the links in my posting and have no clue why they are there . I have reported it to the mods to have them removed from my post.

[GordMay]

Omicron overpowers key COVID antibody treatments in early tests

Preliminary experiments [1] suggest that most of the monoclonal antibody treatments, for COVID-19, are powerless against the Omicron variant. Monoclonal antibody treatments use artificial versions, of natural antibodies, to treat COVID-19, in people who are at high risk of severe disease.

The new evidence comes from a slew of preprint studies [1], which have not yet been peer reviewed. But, some of the companies that manufacture antibody therapies, already concede that their products have lower potency against Omicron, than against other variants.

The preprints [1] report that only two antibodies show strong evidence of retaining some ability to thwart the variant: sotrovimab, developed by Vir Biotechnology in San Francisco, California, and GSK, headquartered in London; and DXP-604, which is undergoing clinical trials in China and was developed by BeiGene and Singlomics, both based in Beijing.

Drugs such as Paxlovid (nirmatrelvir and ritonavir), and molnupiravir, are expected to be effective against Omicron, because of their mechanism of action, and which are cheaper than antibody treatments.

More about ➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03829-0

[1] Referenced Pre-Print Articles, Not yet reviewed:

“Broadly neutralizing antibodies overcome SARS-CoV-2 Omicron antigenic shift” ~ by Elisabetta Cameroni et al
➥ https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1....472269v2.full

“SARS-CoV-2 Omicron: evasion of potent humoral responses and resistance to clinical immunotherapeutics relative to viral variants of concern” ~ by Anupriya Aggarwal et al
➥ https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...72v1.full-text

“Considerable escape of SARS-CoV-2 variant Omicron to antibody neutralization” ~ by Delphine Planas et al
➥ https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1....472630v1.full

“Omicron escapes the majority of existing SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies” ~ by Yunlong Cao et al
➥ https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1....470392v2.full

More COVID-19 SARS-CoV-2 preprints from medRxiv and bioRxiv:
21,054 Articles ➥ https://connect.biorxiv.org/relate/content/181

[GordMay]

Short Videos from PBS’ ‘NOVA’

Scientists Capture the First Light from the Big Bang
Feast your eyes on one of the most important images in all of cosmology: a picture of the first light from the Big Bang.
Video [2:57min] ➥ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/...ight-big-bang/

Was the Big Bang an Explosion or Something Else?
Energy transformed into matter during the Big Bang.
Video [3:01] ➥ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/...omething-else/

[GordMay]

Happy perihelion!
Yep, Earth reached its closest point to the Sun yesterday.[1]
Get some perspective on things, with a fun scrolly webpage from the Perimeter Institute [2], that takes us from the subatomic realm, to the farthest reaches of the Universe.

[1] Earth closest to sun on January 3-4 ➥ https://earthsky.org/tonight/earth-c...early-January/

[2] Quantum to Cosmos: A journey through the universe
➥ https://quantumtocosmos.ca/#/landing

[Reefmagnet]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Happy perihelion!
Yep, Earth reached its closest point to the Sun yesterday.[1]
Get some perspective on things, with a fun scrolly webpage from the Perimeter Institute [2], that takes us from the subatomic realm, to the farthest reaches of the Universe.

[1] Earth closest to sun on January 3-4 ➥ https://earthsky.org/tonight/earth-c...early-January/

[2] Quantum to Cosmos: A journey through the universe
➥ https://quantumtocosmos.ca/#/landing

No wonder it's so dang hot where I am at the moment. Not only is the sun more or less directly overhead at noon, we're also closest to the sun!

[GordMay]

Small increments of sea level rise become big problems along world coastlines

Due to competing predictions of future global temperatures, scientists are unsure exactly how fast or high sea levels will rise.

But they all agree on its impacts: submergence and flooding of coastal land, saltwater intrusion into surface waters and groundwater, increased erosion, and overwhelmingly negative social and economic repercussions. They are also clear that these effects will be widespread, and will accelerate with time.

Since many coastal cities are built on mangroves and swamps, some of the world’s biggest cities are sinking, at the same time as seawater is rising. This is not just because they are heavy, but also because their residents are extracting vast quantities of groundwater.

Even in the unlikely event that global temperatures are kept from exceeding two degrees Celsius, by 2050, close to 600 coastal cities with over 800 million residents will be ravaged by rising seas and storm surges, water salinization, and an unfathomable financial burden.

According to data produced by Climate Central [1], which uses a new digital elevation model, CoastalDEM [2], to better project annual flood levels, rising ocean waters will completely inundate many coastal land areas, within the next three decades.

Here are just some of the places, around the world, that could be underwater by 2050, if major steps to prepare for rising seas aren't taken:
Bruges, Belgium
East Anglia, UK
Delft, the Netherlands
Ribe, Denmark
Tabasco, Mexico
Panama City, Panama
The Bahamas
Bangkok, Thailand
Ho Chi Minh City, and Hué, Vietnam
Venice, Ravenna, and Aquileia, Adriatic Coast, Italy
Thessaloniki, Thermaic Gulf, Greece
Andalucía, Spain
Alexandria, Egypt
Port Douglas, Australia
Tuvalu
Kuching, Malaysia
Mumbai, and Kolkata, India
Shanghai, China
Manila, Philippines
Maputo, and all Coastal Mozambique
Churchill, and all Hudson Bay, Canada
Charleston, SC, USA
St Augustine, FL, USA
All Florida Keys, USA
New Orleans, LA, USA
San Francisco Bay Area, USA

[1] “Land projected to be below annual flood level in 2050" ~ Climate Central
➥ https://coastal.climatecentral.org/m...odel=kopp_2014

[2] Coastal Risk Screening Tool [CoastalDEM] ➥ https://coastal.climatecentral.org/

RISING WATERS: How NASA is Monitoring Sea Level Rise
➥ https://www.nasa.gov/specials/sea-level-rise-2020/

[Chotu]

Side Story: Boaters eagerly await new cruising grounds, anchorages and drive-through provisioning at local grocery stores.

Originally Posted by GordMay

Small increments of sea level rise become big problems along world coastlines

Due to competing predictions of future global temperatures, scientists are unsure exactly how fast or high sea levels will rise.

But they all agree on its impacts: submergence and flooding of coastal land, saltwater intrusion into surface waters and groundwater, increased erosion, and overwhelmingly negative social and economic repercussions. They are also clear that these effects will be widespread, and will accelerate with time.

Since many coastal cities are built on mangroves and swamps, some of the world’s biggest cities are sinking, at the same time as seawater is rising. This is not just because they are heavy, but also because their residents are extracting vast quantities of groundwater.

Even in the unlikely event that global temperatures are kept from exceeding two degrees Celsius, by 2050, close to 600 coastal cities with over 800 million residents will be ravaged by rising seas and storm surges, water salinization, and an unfathomable financial burden.

According to data produced by Climate Central [1], which uses a new digital elevation model, CoastalDEM [2], to better project annual flood levels, rising ocean waters will completely inundate many coastal land areas, within the next three decades.

Here are just some of the places, around the world, that could be underwater by 2050, if major steps to prepare for rising seas aren't taken:
Bruges, Belgium
East Anglia, UK
Delft, the Netherlands
Ribe, Denmark
Tabasco, Mexico
Panama City, Panama
The Bahamas
Bangkok, Thailand
Ho Chi Minh City, and Hué, Vietnam
Venice, s Ravenna, and Aquileia, Adriatic Coast, Italy
Thessaloniki, Thermaic Gulf, Greece
Andalucía, Spain
Alexandria, Egypt
Port Douglas, Australia
Tuvalu
Kuching, Malaysia
Mumbai, and Kolkata, India
Shanghai, China
Manila, Philippines
Maputo, and all Coastal Mozambique
Churchill, and all Hudson Bay, Canada
Charleston, SC, USA
St Augustine, FL, USA
All Florida Keys, USA
New Orleans, LA, USA
San Francisco Bay Area, USA

[1] “Land projected to be below annual flood level in 2050" ~ Climate Central
➥ https://coastal.climatecentral.org/m...odel=kopp_2014

[2] Coastal Risk Screening Tool [CoastalDEM] ➥ https://coastal.climatecentral.org/

RISING WATERS: How NASA is Monitoring Sea Level Rise
➥ https://www.nasa.gov/specials/sea-level-rise-2020/

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Chotu

Side Story: Boaters eagerly await new cruising grounds, anchorages and drive-through provisioning at local grocery stores.

Haven't they been teasing us with that for decades ?
When will they give up the charade..

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by newhaul

Haven't they been teasing us with that for decades ? ...

Yes, they have.
Unfortunately, some folks just refuse to listen to the facts [1], and prefer their fantasy-world, of alternate reality [2].

Sea level has risen 8–9 inches [21–24 cm], since 1880, with about a third of that coming in just the last two and a half decades.
In 2020, global mean sea level was 3.6 inches [91.3 mm] above the 1993 average, making it the highest annual average in the satellite record [1993-present].
From 1993 -to- 2020, Global Mean Seal Level Rate of Change has been +0.134 inches [3.4 mm] per year.

For instance:
[1] NASA’s Sea Level Portal ➥ https://sealevel.nasa.gov/
vs
[2] WUWT Sea Level Portal ➥ https://wattsupwiththat.com/tag/sea-level-rise/

Since you [newhaul] are so fond of unattributed graphs:




https://www.climate.gov/news-feature...obal-sea-level

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Yes, they have.
Unfortunately, some folks just refuse to listen to the facts [1], and prefer their fantasy-world, of alternate reality [2].

Sea level has risen 8–9 inches [21–24 cm], since 1880, with about a third of that coming in just the last two and a half decades.
In 2020, global mean sea level was 3.6 inches [91.3 mm] above the 1993 average, making it the highest annual average in the satellite record [1993-present].
From 1993 -to- 2020, Global Mean Seal Level Rate of Change has been +0.134 inches [3.4 mm] per year.

For instance:
[1] NASA’s Sea Level Portal ➥ https://sealevel.nasa.gov/
vs
[2] WUWT Sea Level Portal ➥ https://wattsupwiththat.com/tag/sea-level-rise/

Since you [newhaul] are so fond of unattributed graphs:




https://www.climate.gov/news-feature...obal-sea-level

Sorry haven't seen it here in the last 50 years on the waters .

Perhaps because of tides that vary up to 14 feet each day.

[bcboomer]

Originally Posted by newhaul

Sorry haven't seen it here in the last 50 years on the waters .

Perhaps because of tides that vary up to 14 feet each day.

You remind me of the story about 3 blind men describing an elephant.