Science Megathread

[DINGO Joe]

A new type of botulism toxin has been discovered that is so deadly and currently without an antidote that it's DNA code is being suppressed from public databases--a first.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24398-new-botox-supertoxin-has-its-details-censored.html#.Ulv3rRAiy3U?utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=SOC&utm_campaign=twitter&cmpid=SOC|NSNS|2012-GLOBAL-twitter

[DINGO Joe]

Don't get too excited about this, but dolphins are huge backers of legalized pot or at least legalized puffer fish.

Freakin hippies.

[DINGO Joe]

Paleontologists unveil the newly discovered "chicken from hell"

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/03/140319-dinosaurs-feathers-animals-science-new-species/

I think it was a recurring character on "Kids in the Hall"

[DINGO Joe]

First carbon-capture plant opens in Saskatchewan, Canada.

Things haven't gone very well

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/30/business/energy-environment/technology-to-make-clean-energy-from-coal-is-stumbling-in-practice.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0

Super Expensive.  Breaks down constantly.  Requires almost 1/3rd of the energy produced to run the plant and compress the carbon.  Be interesting to see how Kemper compares--if it ever runs on coal.

[DINGO Joe]

A power plant in Rwanda is going to run on methane harvested from a rift valley lake.

http://www.engineering.com/DesignerEdge/DesignerEdgeArticles/ArticleID/12175/Engineers-Harvest-Methane-Gas-from-Lake-in-Rwanda-That-May-Explode.aspx

May be a good idea (and reduce a chance of natural explosion) may be a really bad idea.

[DINGO Joe]

Sure it' just a rock, but it's a really cool one

meteorite older than the solar system found in Sahara

[DINGO Joe]

From the Ministry of Silly Archaeology, this Pythonesque story:



This skeleton appears to be from a man who survived the initial explosion (at Pompei) and was fleeing the doomed city. But it was not slow-moving molten lava that killed most of the people of Pompeii. Instead, a vast cloud of hot gas and fragments - called a pyroclastic flow - surged over the city, killing its inhabitants wherever they were, and burying them in ash, preserving their final moment.

Archaeologists believe it was this lethal cloud which struck their newest discovery, throwing him backwards as he turned to look at it.

The man, believed to be in his 30s, was found on the first floor of a building, above the layer of small stones carried by the cloud.

But the force of the erupting gas and rock also picked up an enormous rock - which experts think might have been a door jamb (the vertical part of a door frame) - and hurled it at the victim, crushing his upper body near the throat and possibly removing his head, which is missing.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44303247

[DINGO Joe]

From the Ministry of Silly Palentology:



In Utah, dinohunters found an unusual fossil underneath a dinosaur foot, a half mammal, half reptile creature that had only been found in Asia before.

https://www.sltrib.com/news/education/2018/05/29/scientists-discover-the-fossilized-skull-of-a-mammal-like-critter-under-a-dinosaurs-foot-in-utah-and-then-it-gets-even-weirder/

The fossil indicates that Pangaea didn't break up as soon as geologist thought.

[DINGO Joe]

The fable Burgess Shale has produced a new find, a predator shaped like the Millenium Falcon, the Cambroraster falcatus

https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/cambroraster-burgess-shale-1.5229120

[DINGO Joe]

Allow me to introduce the parrot from hell, the kind that stood 3 feet tall and was a cannibal:

This toddler-size parrot was a prehistoric oddity
The flightless 'squawkzilla' stood three feet tall and was twice the weight of the kakapo, the heaviest parrot alive today.

You beat me to it.  His scientific name is pretty awesome--Heracles inexpectatus

Can't wait for the Syfy channel movie.

[DINGO Joe]

The story of a 1,700 year old sock found in Egypt.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smartnews-history-archaeology/1700-year-old-sock-spins-yarn-about-ancient-egyptian-fashion-180970501/

Nice sock.  Note they only found one though.

[DINGO Joe]

Experts Doubt the Sun Is Actually Burning Coal

[DINGO Joe]

1st known swimming dinosaur just discovered. And it was magnificent.

Total badass

[DINGO Joe]

Slightly unnerving, no?

Earth faster, closer to black hole in new map of galaxy

Earth just got 7 km/s faster and about 2000 light-years closer to the supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. But don't worry, this doesn't mean that our planet is plunging towards the black hole. Instead the changes are results of a better model of the Milky Way Galaxy based on new observation data, including a catalog of objects observed over the course of more than 15 years by the Japanese radio astronomy project VERA.

Oh, they're lying to us

[DINGO Joe]

1st preserved dinosaur butthole is 'perfect' and 'unique,' paleontologist says

I don't write them, I just report them