Science Megathread

[dead0man]

Neptune has a new moon

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The evidence against it seems stronger than the evidence for it....but I'm no astrophysicist.

[dead0man]

Indeed, good read.

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Researcher shows that black holes do not exist

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Say what now?  Muon?

[dead0man]

Indeed, and that is worrisome, but it's based on a peer reviewed paper that is tackling the same thing.  link

All of this stuff is way over my head, but I find it deeply interesting nonetheless.

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X37B set to return

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[dead0man]

We could use this technology in the United States, as we steadily shut down the older nuclear power plants -it could even become the backbone of our energy sector with renewables playing a supplementary role:

Nuclear developers have big plans for pint-sized power plants in UK

By Susanna Twidale | LONDON
Mon Aug 22, 2016 10:10am EDT

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The US has been using tiny nuclear generators for decades in various boats and ships of the US Navy.  We even tried to put them in planes once.  wiki
And it seems like I read something about putting them in tiny Canadian villages in the middle of nowhere as a cheaper alternative to driving tanker trucks to them to fill local generators.

and oh yeah, the Voyager spacecraft had them...and after looking that up, not quite.  They involved radioactive stuff, but just using the heat from natural decay, not forcing anything.

[dead0man]

SETI may have found something.  link

(probably not)

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[dead0man]

some good news that will no doubt scare the anti-science ninnies

They put some human stem cells into a pig embryo to see if they could get some human stuff to grow, it did!

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New underwater continent discovered: Zealandia

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no.  "researchers" don't get to say what makes a continent or not.  Even it was above the water line (it's not, which is kind of important) it would still only be half the size of Australia.  This is a microcontinent or a continental fragment.  So at best it is a continent in the same way Pluto is a planet.  sorta

[dead0man]

Science trumps fearmongering in the EU as they legalize glyphosate for 5 more years

[dead0man]

yet another data point suggesting legal weed could help end our opioid problem

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[dead0man]

well that's weird...how had I missed that were different kinds (phases?) of ice?

[dead0man]

yeah, I read (skimmed) the various wikis.  It was just weird that I had missed that little nugget in all my years of watching Nova, Cosmos, etc and reading wiki for hours on end.

[dead0man]

if the Nancies let proper testing of CRISPR and other gene altering techs anybody that wanted gills could have them.  The Luddites and the socialists will never allow proper institutions to study things like that above the board though, so it will only be the super rich willing to break laws that will benefit.  You'd think they would be against that, but alas, that's what always happen when Luddites and socialists are allowed to hand cuff science.

[dead0man]

sucking CO² is cheaper than we thought

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also Dr Oz is garbage, but we already knew that.

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basketball sized AI bot helping on the ISS

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Jupiter has 79 moons now

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lots of nuclear power options here (or right around the corner), but we might be too soft to let them help us.

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much much more at link

[dead0man]

yep, just read that too.  12 miles long, a mile under the surface.  Probably more of a slushy, salty muddy mess, but it's something.

[dead0man]

This is what happens when we don't fight global warming people!

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NASA's New Horizons Mission Reveals Entirely New Kind of World

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[dead0man]

in news that shocks nobody Extreme opponents of genetically modified foods know the least but think they know the most