Science Megathread

[DemPGH]

Interesting and rather obvious links between dinosaur bones and dragons. Essentially, ancient people unearthed dinosaur bones or else fossilized remains, perhaps, and constructed from them mythological creatures like dragons.

http://humanexperience.stanford.edu/feature-dragons

Of course ancient people had very detailed and remarkable knowledge of the skies and even axial procession (which is where interest in the zodiac germinates, I think, although there is not a single mystical thing about it), so there is no reason to think they weren't interested in what was in the Earth.

[DemPGH]

Chinese White Dolphin population may be under 60. Severely threatened is this species. Human activity largely the culprit of course, which I just hate. Dolphins period are marvelous creatures, so I hope something can be done.

Make a buck or save a dolphin? Save a dolphin, by all means.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/19/world/china-hong-kong-white-dolphin-extinction/index.html?hpt=hp_c3

[DemPGH]

Great CNN video! A young lady performs gymnastic movements for a very curious and amused dolphin. A little reading about these marvelous animals will demonstrate the range of emotions they are capable of, how curious they are, and how intelligent they are, being big brained mammals of the sea.

http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/living/2013/07/22/newday-girl-makes-dolphin-laugh.cnn.html

[DemPGH]

Yeah, let's bump this. It drifted out to page six.

This is an outstanding discovery: a free-floating planet has been discovered, a gas planet. It's not all that far from Earth, at least in celestial distances, at 80 light years. I believe it's around 12 million years old.

You know, the whole thing about E.T. life is complicated, I think, by the discovery of new planets, particularly gas planets. Considering that planets form from nebular and stellar debris, it's not  unreasonable to assume that a LOT of planets are gas planets, which means life as we know it would not evolve - not little green men, anyway. So if you have a lot of gas planets as well as a good share of rocky planets not in habitable zones, life as we know it could be very rare. Just a side note.

[DemPGH]

Evidence of three and a half billion year old microbes found in western Australia's Dresser Formation. Fantastic find.

[DemPGH]

Be nice if we could stickie this thread somewhere.

I was just now cleaning out some old emails and found this: Dolphins likely have the longest and most expansive memory of any non-human species. They are like us in so many ways, yet they live in the water and communicate by clicks and tones. Which are thus far indecipherable. Like humans, their brains are very large and very complex when considering the size of their bodies. Freedom Species!

Here's a fascinating snippet:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I'd like to know more about that. Did they understand that they were "tidying up" or would that concept be alien to them?

Evidence of three and a half billion year old microbes found in western Australia's Dresser Formation. Fantastic find.

It would seem life was just itching to start once the earth cooled enough.  That's why space exploration is so important.  It is a distinct possibility that life could exist on other worlds in our solar system.

I totally agree, and there is the possibility that that intelligent life will be like whales and never build a radio to talk back to us!

[DemPGH]

Dolphins surfing with humans.

They love to surf and of course have been known to do this on a fairly regular basis, and they give people a good scare at first. I think the lady in the video saw them.

[DemPGH]

The spectrum of ball lightning has been discovered. It consists of neutral atomic silicon, calcium, iron, nitrogen and oxygen—in contrast with mainly ionized nitrogen emission lines in the spectrum of the parent lightning.

I've got my idea -- that they are space-chilled pieces of debris from supernova explosions that strike the earth's atmosphere at great speed and are heated to great temperatures through frictional drag.  Silicon, calcium, and iron are among the later and heaviest elements formed in a star as it approaches the supernova stage (and its catastrophic, fatal demise). If they are unoxidized, silicon, iron, and especially calcium react violently with the oxygen in the Earth's  atmosphere.

Ball lightning has certainly been proposed as an explanation for some UFO sightings and on rare occasions for paranormal sightings.

As to your proposal, wouldn't that have a shooting star effect, though? Ball lighting, from what I have read, need not behave that way.

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

Freakin hippies.

Haha, surfers and pot smokers. Ehh, might be a bad influence on the kids after all!

[DemPGH]

Interesting: Sugar is even worse than thought (link to the original study contained therein), or just as bad depending upon your circle. The nice thing about cleaning up your diet is that once something is gone, it's gone. For example, if you really do eliminate excess sugar your tolerance to it goes down so that something that used to not be very sweet now is too sweet. While salt is an issue, sugar is a big one.

And, cancers are expected to increase. As people live longer and face other hazards (environmental, mainly), it sure could rise.

[DemPGH]

Avocados are not only good but are epic freedom food with tons of health benefits. I knew they were good for you, but not quite as good as they are. I've been working in one a day to my diet. You can do almost anything with them, although I would never ruin them by eating them with something that will kill you.

Related: if you want to go healthy, replace the black pepper in your pantry with cayenne pepper.

[DemPGH]

Hello, science thread! It's been a while.

Interestingly, NASA appears to be seriously investigating the possibilities of faster than light travel. I guess the big improvement is that they've figured out a way to need less power than previously thought to fuel the thing. Previously, they thought they needed to generate the power put out by Jupiter. which is LOL, no.

Back in 2008 they reported this - at which point the concept was moving from speculation into science in terms of "maturity" with still quite a ways to go.

Needless to say, if this were ever a reality, there is no question that it would be the absolute crowning achievement of humanity.

[DemPGH]

Outrageous Acts of Science, btw, is a great TV show that shows the "fun" side of science for sure.

This Octopus video is amazing.