TIZER'S SCIENCE NEWS

[Stanley]

THIScaught my attention this morning, a report on the decline of flying insects in Germany by 75%. I have a feeling this is more serious than we might think......

[Tizer]

It's another of those times were the writing has been on the wall for ages but no-one in power has done anything about it. And now they're too busy with Brexit.

[Stanley]

Tell that to the bees.......

[Tizer]

Here's one of those simple, cheap ideas that can make a big difference...
`Wildlife colonises man-made rock pools' LINK

[Stanley]

I heard that report Tiz and thought it was brilliantly simple and effective. Perhaps there is a point in research at universities after all?
HERE is a nice example of simple observation revealing something that wasn't previously provable. French surgeons have determined that on the whole, people survive complicated surgery better if it is done in the afternoon. They don't discount the fact that this might be because the surgeons are functioning better but the main agreement is that it is connected to the body clock of the patient. It looks as though I could be a good candidate for morning surgery!

[Tizer]

Two interesting stories...

`New Sentinel satellite tracks dirty air' Link 1

`Gravity signals rapidly show true size of giant quakes' LINK 2

[Stanley]

Isn't it wonderful what's going out there. The longer we survive the more we learn.....

[Tizer]

Yes, and it's good that many scientists from different countries around the world are working together regardless of political differences. The International Space Station is the best known example but there are lots of others, especially in astronomy, oceanography, atmospheric science, climate change, pollution and so on. As a scientist I never found politics, religion, nationalism or cultural differences getting in the way of cooperation. I was welcomed wherever I went and we welcomed all who came here. As you can guess, Brexit is not popular among scientists!

[Stanley]

It's only popular with unreconstructed old empire men and Lords of the Universe looking for more loopholes to make dodgy profits!

[Tizer]

And those who've been misled by some politicians who they should have been able to trust and by the news media who flood them with real fake news.

[Stanley]

[plaques]

Headline today, "Chinese restrictions from January will hit UK recycling efforts and risk plastic waste being stockpiled or ending up in landfill, warn industry leaders". Link. Although warned back in 2008 nothing has been done. Two thirds of all our plastics waste is shipped to China for recycling that equates to 2.7 Million tons since 2012. Of course once we have Brexited we will be able to ignore any European regulations and dump the stuff wherever we like. Time to either restrict plastic use or find a commercial way of dealing with it.

[Tizer]

Perhaps all plastics items should be security coded so that it can be traced back to the manufacturer and retailer and make them responsible for making sure it's recycled.

[Stanley]

Another example of how humans foul their nests..... Lots of talking going on but no incisive action.

[Tizer]

There is news this morning that "An `exceptional' 530-million-year-old fossil contains what could be the oldest eye ever discovered, according to scientists. The remains of the extinct sea creature include an early form of the eye seen in many of today's animals, including crabs, bees and dragonflies. Scientists made the find while looking at the well-preserved trilobite fossil."

A fact that interests me more than the age is something that's been known for a long time but isn't mentioned in the news article I read. The lenses in trilobite eyes were not made of soft issue like modern eyes but instead were formed from calcite (calcium carbonate mineral). The trouble with calcite for this purpose is that calcite crystals are birefringent - if you look through a crystal you see a double image. Further development of the trilobite calcite eye was aimed at minimising or side-stepping this problem. One way was to incorporate some magnesium into the structure - which resulted in those trilobites having dolomite eyes! Eventually it was all in vain because trilobites died out in one of the great extinctions. But they managed for about 200 million years with mineral eyes so the design must have been successful for them.

[Stanley]

I heard the scientist explaining the significance of the development of sight and was struck when he pointed out that this was the genesis of the concept of 'colour' as prior to that different wavelengths of light couldn't be detected by smell and feeling or even sensitivity to any form of radiated energy. Fascinating......

[Tizer]

We now find that many animals can see ultraviolet light...
`Animals see power lines as glowing, flashing bands, research reveals ' LINK

[Stanley]

I've always been intrigued by the fact that we assume every other person and animal sees like we do but this is an illusion. We can't possibly know. I came to this when I found that some people see everything 'upside down', which raises the question who is 'right'? Further, is there a 'right' at all!

[chinatyke]

I've always been intrigued by the fact that we assume every other person and animal sees like we do but this is an illusion. We can't possibly know. I came to this when I found that some people see everything 'upside down', which raises the question who is 'right'? Further, is there a 'right' at all!

Colour blindness, the classic case of people seeing differently. Even age makes a difference how you perceive colours, a young person and an older person wouldn't match some colours the same.

[Stanley]

True.... Having my replacement lens in my eyes changed my colour palette. I thought my lavatory was Magnolia but after the new lens it was white!

[Tizer]

I had to learn more about colour and its perception when I worked for a food company and I remember well listening to a lecture by a man from M&S explaining how they carefully chose their lighting so that customers would see the retailers clothing in the best light. Very small differences in lighting could completely change the perceived colour, especially between blue and green.
-------------------------------
This tells how British scientists are helping Americans better understand flooding in the US. Also, watch the video at the end about the effects of sea level rise on cities - we now realise melting glaciers don't only change sea level by adding water to the oceans but the glaciers are so big that they have gravitational effects that change sea level too.

US flood risk 'severely underestimated' LINK

[PanBiker]

I had to learn colour spectrum theory during my apprenticeship into TV and electronics servicing. The CRT based colour TV's of the time all relied on the three primaries of Red, Green and Blue. Combinations of these at different intensities can produce any colour in the visible spectrum which is how the TV's produced the multicolour display. The screen behind the glass envelope comprised of individual Red, Green and Blue phosphor dots arranged in rows of close proximity uniform triad formation. A typical 22" colour CRT would have in the region of 400,000 triad clusters. Behind this was a metal screen called the shadowmask, this had a pin sized hole centred on each cluster of three coloured phosphor dots. The shadowmask was a thin metal screen held under tension and spot welded to the internal metal rim of the envelope. The holes were etched into the screen and each one was tapered so that it could accept and deflect the electron beam from the "guns" in the CRT neck to excite the correct phosphor dot corresponding to each of the gun's. The guns were arranged in the neck also in triad formation but inverted in relation to the orientation of the corresponding dots on the screen. The taper on the holes acted to deflect each electron beam to excite the correct phosphor dot as it passed through the shadowmask.



Some manufacturers used a slotted arrangement in the mask this allowed the three guns to be set in-line in the CRT neck. Corresponding phosphor dots were rectangular rather than round. Regardless of the CRT technology the remaining circuitry was the same.

The three guns in the CRT were driven to different levels of luminance as required by the signal. Deflector coils were arranged round the CRT neck and were driven by Line (horizontal) and Field (vertical) timebases which scanned the electron beams from top to bottom and swept the screen in 625 lines. The electron beams were encouraged to the front of the screen by 25,000 volts on the final anode connector of the CRT. The luminance and chrominance signals driving each of the guns transferred intensity and colour information. Each of the guns were physically the same but each only received information for a single primary colour. By varying which dots were lit and the intensity to which it was driven allowed any colour in the spectrum to be produced by each triad cluster. Full intensity of Red, Green and Blue produced White, turn them all off and you get Black, vary the intensity of each dot within the cluster and you get any other colour in-between White and Black on the visible spectrum.

That last statement is not strictly true as black does not exist in the light spectrum or in the real world. Black cannot be produced as it is the absence of all light. What we perceive as black in light, pigment, paint or dye is actually a very dark blue or brown, it's all an optical illusion.

Back to my training, I hasten to add that I had to learn how to work out the colour spectrum mathematically for any given colour. This included proving that black does not exist in the visible spectrum. All this came as part of five years of Calcs and Principles, never really had to use it in anger or get out pen and paper to fix a colour TV. I could fully relate to "Marvin the Paranoid Android" in Hitch Hikers, "Brain like a planet and I and up parking cars".

All different now with multicolour LED technology.

[Stanley]

Or even opening doors.....
All I can say is that when the old CRT tubes lost calibration it made a mess of the picture!

[chinatyke]

That brought back memories of my time in quality control at Mullards, Simonstone when colour tv in homes was a new thing and very expensive. And my time at UMIST doing colour physics for ASDC. In fact black can be any colour of the spectrum if you think about it (not absolute black which, as you say, is the total absence of light).

[Tizer]

An object only looks really black when our eyes cannot detect or our brains cannot analyse any of its emitted electromagnetic radiation. But my black might be your indigo if you can detect a bit more of the spectrum. And usually what we call a black object is grey because it's reflecting a small amount of light. Similarly with white - most often there is some yellow. We all thought white cars were white until `brilliant white' came along and surprised us by showing that our white cars had actually been cream in colour.