The Science Thread

@bullpr:

Seems there are more plans for mars than the moon.

Terraforming the Moon would not work. There's no atmosphere, so that's a big problem. Even if you could start to build up one, the Moon is too small and doesnt have a magnetic field, so that atmosphere would just get blown away. Then there's the problem of the gravity being too low and no substantial water. The Moon only really has the advantage that it's close to Earth, and being small and having low gravity means that it's a good base to launch from... so establishing bases or mining/manufacturing facilities on the Moon would be a good idea.

Terraforming Mars is not a bad idea, but it also suffers a bit from the low gravity and lacking a magnetic field. So a similar problem where if you tried to thicken up the atmosphere, the solar wind would be fighting you all the time.

Setting up colonies on Venus is also a possibility. You could try to terraform it, but that might be hard. One option that's frequently discussed is setting up floating cities up on top of the thick atmosphere.

@willpayton:

Is there evidence that Earth has a magneto effect; or could it just as likely have a solid iron core that was at one stage induced with magnetic flux from somewhere ???

I think you mean what the evidence is for a dynamo generating the magnetic field? Well, that's not something I'm that familiar with, but there is very good evidence that the Earth's magnetic field changes and even reverses periodically. So, a solid core would not account for that. As far as I know, however, the dynamo theory is mostly supported by mathematical models.

@willpayton:

Yeah dynamo.

I think the dynamo theory is pretty solid because computer models based on it give very good agreement with the data. Interesting to note that dynamo effects also come into play at larger scales. For example, while at university I worked on a paper where we studied the dynamo effect in the very early galaxy and how that affected the galactic magnetic field. That kind of knowledge comes in handy later when you're studying the light from distance galaxies as well as the evolution of our own galaxy from a proto-galactic cloud.

Here's an interesting example of how science works. After the launch of two satellites that went wrong, scientists found an opportunity to use them to test Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. In the end they verified the theory to a new level of accuracy.

Even though the theory was successfully verified, the scientists were somewhat disappointed. But, why should that be? The thing is that in science, we're always looking for new and better understandings of how the universe works. It's also boring to just verify existing knowledge. If you can test an existing theory to new levels of accuracy, that gives you a chance to maybe find something wrong with that theory, in other words, it gives you a chance to find new and interesting physics. We still dont have a good "theory of everything", and an experiment that shows any discrepancy between data and theory would probably lead to a lot of new activity, research, and excitement in that area of physics.

But... Einstein's theory is still safe.

@willpayton:

I read that the sun reverses its magnetic field every 11 years.

I've also read that the earth's magnetic field is weakening by 0.05% per year. What could be happening in the dynamo model to account for this?

Well I think the two are a bit different. The Sun's interior is a plasma, and as such there are stronger interactions between the particles and the magnetic field. The particles are moved around by the field, and the field is also moved by the particles. This is something called "flux freezing", and it causes very complex forces to build up inside a dense plasma like in the Sun. And, while I'm no expert on this, I'd imagine what's going on is a combination of a periodic change due to a build up of magnetic forces, and/or with the addition of momentum flips like what we see when you spin an object around a particular axis. Like this:

In the Earth's core, it's probably similar but with less effect due to the flux freezing.

I know that simulations have been done where they simulate the fluid dynamics plus magnetic forces and they get this type of periodic reversals. It's just something that happens because of the complex forces and movements inside a dynamo like this.

There have also been experiments with liquid sodium that show similar results.

https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00492334/document

Wasn't the first case of slime invented for a movie?

In case people didnt know, Queen's guitarist Brian May is also an astrophysicist. Yes, he has a Doctorate in astrophysics and has done research in that area. He started back in the early days of Queen and he eventually finished his degree research and got his PhD in 2008. The reason he never finished it in the 70's was because... well, you know, he was a huge rock star and all that. It's time consuming.

Learn more about it here...

@willpayton:

I finally got around to watching the movie on Dec 18th. It was great. But I already knew everything from watching docos and reading a book. I didn't realise Brian took that long to complete his phd. He. Should get together and make a doco with Brian Cox and Brian Schmidt. They could name it "The Boltzmann Brians" or The Cosmic Brians" or "The Life the Universe and Everything of Brian"

I'd pay good money to see that.

Trump's new proposed budget would cut $1 Billion from the National Science Foundation budget, lowering it by 12%. But of course that's not all, there would also be cuts to other much needed programs like education and health.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/433507-trump-proposes-cutting-national-science-foundation-budget-by-billion-dollars

The endless attack on and degradation of our national education, science, and technology programs by Republicans needs to stop. What's the money going to go into, more military spending to start pointless wars? Building ridiculous fences along the border that will just be pathetic rusting junk in a few years? These people are slowly destroying our country's ability to innovate and lead the world in technology. But hey, we DO lead the world in borrowing money from China and then spending it to kill people... so I guess that's something.

@willpayton:

I hate rich people who send poor people to die and make poor people poorer. I want trump to fight on the front line

Looks like I might have to rethink my entire world view.

This

@willpayton said:

Looks like I might have to rethink my entire world view.

Ahahahaha

All is revealed

That's rubbish, the earth is flatter than that.

@bullpr: @willpayton: @flashfyr: @jonjizz:

Amazing.

@spareheadone: 1h!

A bit too long. What is the take home message?

@bullpr:

It is worth the hour even it is ten years old.

Take home message is that cells communicate via chemical signals in order to build an organ correctly. There are start and stop signals, grow and don't grow signals, don't touch signals, branch out or don't branch out signals.

I can add to this video the fact that cells have a carbohydrate/sugar code on their membranes and the fact that cells also trade DNA with each other.

This video shows that DNA only really codes to build the cell. It is actually the cell design and interaction that builds the organs of the body.

@spareheadone: honestly, 1h is quite long and biology research can evolve a lot in 10 years.

But I can check the scientifc record of the orator. What is her name?

@bullpr:

Dorothy Crawford was the principal

Jamie Davies was the presenter

@spareheadone: both good scientists.

@bullpr:

Thanks for checking it out

@spareheadone: the video is very long and i don't really care about this, but i read your extrapolation... what were you thinking before watching it?

remember that cells are living beings individually, we are made of many smaller life-forms cooperating with each others, think of ourselves like a giant colony of smaller living beings.

each cell reads the genes in the dna like instructions, depending on what type of cell it is, but the cell itself is alive.

this whole process evolved over the course of billions of years... so if you think it's quite complex, it sure is, but it also had a lot of time to evolve gradually.

@jonjizz:

the video is very long and i don't really care about this, but i read your extrapolation... what were you thinking before watching it?

I was thinking about the creative potential of DNA mutations. I looked for what it is that builds organs.

remember that cells are living beings individually, we are made of many smaller life-forms cooperating with each others, think of ourselves like a giant colony of smaller living beings.

I like thaat

each cell reads the genes in the dna like instructions, depending on what type of cell it is, but the cell itself is alive.

This vid is about how organs are built. It turns out they are built epigenetically. Cells have very precise codes that tell them what to do. They have pumps that release signals and they have receptors that receive signals and it all coordinates to build an organ.

this whole process evolved over the course of billions of years... so if you think it's quite complex, it sure is, but it also had a lot of time to evolve gradually.

This is dogma.

According to the fossil record single cells appear with no precursors. Multicellular organisms appear with no precursors. Single celled organisms appear only 800 million years after the formation of the earth where they are fully able to operate as they do today. This includes trading DNA and working together building algae mats.

So this process did not evolve over billions of years. You have 800 million years to get from nothing to a fully operational archea or bacteria and we don't know how it happened and yet we have instructions in DNA and on the cell membrane that make things happen exactly how they happen.

@spareheadone: if you think you know better than thousands of experts and scientists all over the world, who am i to tell you otherwise? you clearly must know things that the most well-prepared minds of our planet completely missed... but somehow YOU got it right while everyone else is following a dogma! congratulation!

and of course your bias against the theory evolution is merely a coincidence.

-end sarcasm-

i'll just link and leave this for reply https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earliest_known_life_forms

@jonjizz:

Wikipedia just says everything I said.

You are the one adding to the science with your fairytale.

@spareheadone: ok dude, i don't care to waste any time on this, you either support the theory of evolution or you don't

if you can't even read that life evolved from billions of years back i don't know what to tell you

@jonjizz:

I support the theory of evolution as a science. I don't support people extrapolating it to mean more than the facts.

@spareheadone: and by people you mean every expert who is more qualified than you to make an assertion on when life started to evolve

and by extrapolating, you mean the necessary guess-work that's required in sciences like paleontology

you sir are a extremely biased and unaware of it

Hey, how would teleportation work?

Asking for a friend.

@jonjizz:

All the experts that agree with my biased view say that the experts who agree with your biased view are wrong.

My experts are way better than your experts and their necessary guesswork is way better than your experts necessary guesswork

@spareheadone: it's not about trusting some experts over others, it's about recognizing what the vast majority of all experts are saying

Correct, when there's scientific consensus, that's the way to go. You can always find one or a few "experts" who disagree with the consensus, and often people try to use them as evidence to support their rejection of the consensus. As far as evolution, we not only have vast amounts of evidence to support the Theory of Evolution and the fact of human evolution, but we have solid consensus.

Teleportation in any real sense is not likely to work. Say you wanted to teleport a human... you have way too many particles and associated quantum states that would need to be replicated. Even if you had a large enough computer, you still have the Uncertainty Principle keeping you from making a perfect copy... or even a very good one.

This is one Trek technology that I dont think will ever happen.

@willpayton: Damn. Thanks a lot man. I really appreciate your response, even if you did just kill my dreams. =(

@jonjizz:

Ahh consensus. Saves you from examining the evidence I spose.

@willpayton:

I missed you.

You gotta challenge your hypotheses, you gotta try to falsify your theory.

Heh.. I know, teleportation would be pretty cool. But, quantum mechanics puts quite damper on it.

Yes, and I think that's the great thing about science, ideas should always be replicable and falsifiable.

The arctic, 100 years ago and today...

you could also use a wormhole, something like this

at least this method of teleportation wouldn't kill you and create a clone of yourself on the other side

@jonjizz said:

@non_playable said:

Hey, how would teleportation work?

Asking for a friend.

you could also use a wormhole, something like this

at least this method of teleportation wouldn't kill you and create a clone of yourself on the other side

That's not teleportation, that's just (theoretically) a very fast way of travelling long distances through space. At no point would your body cease to exist and then materialize in another location.

Well if it is functionally the same as teleportation, that's be cool. I'm guessing there is actual travel time involved though, right?

@non_playable: @jonjizz: @willpayton:

Perhaps each individual organism has its own quantum signature and when we can identify those signatures we can allow the laws to reassemble the organism.

Also if space and time don't exist in the quantum realm then the organism can be reassembled from its original parts.

What say you?