TIZER'S SCIENCE NEWS

[Tizer]

`Water on the Moon could sustain a lunar base' LINK
`...The first of these new discoveries was made from an airborne infrared telescope known as Sofia. This observatory, on board a modified Boeing 747, flies above much of Earth's atmosphere, giving a largely unobstructed view of the Solar System. Using this infrared telescope, researchers picked up the "signature" colour of water molecules. The researchers think it is stored in bubbles of lunar glass or between grains on the surface that protect it from the harsh environment. In the other study, scientists looked for permanently shadowed areas - known as cold traps - where water could be captured and remain permanently. They found these cold traps at both poles and concluded that "approximately 40,000 kilometres squared of the lunar surface has the capacity to trap water".'..

[Tripps]

`Water on the Moon could sustain a lunar base'

It's pantomme season - Oh no it couldn't.

[Stanley]

[Tizer]

`Water on the Moon could sustain a lunar base'

It's pantomme season - Oh no it couldn't.

I'd make you a bet on it but we wouldn't be here to see who wins!

`Great Barrier Reef: Scientists find reef taller than Empire State Building' LINK

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC report on the successful completion of the capture of material from the asteroid Bennu. They have managed to get the container securely inside the 'cargo hold' of the vehicle.

[Tizer]

With my interest in mineralogy I'm looking forward to the analysis of the material! I don't suppose they'll give me a bit for my collection?

One thing leads to another. I was reading about a famous palaeontologist of the early 1800s, Gideon Mantell. His ancestors came over with the Normans and owned a vast area of land but in a later century one of Mantells took the wrong side and was executed. The family lost all the land and by Gideon's time they lived in a small cottage in Lewes and father was a shoemaker. Gideon couldn't go to the local school because the family were Methodists and he was taught his reading and writing by an old lady. Through help from various generous people he ended up getting an apprenticeship with a local surgeon, then got to London and taught himself anatomy from books and eventually became a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons.

As a child he'd been fascinated by the local fossils in the chalk and this became his hobby. While in London he met another surgeon called James Parkinson and found that he too was an amateur palaeontologist with a well-known collection of fossils. Mantell remained a physician but became famous for his studies of dinosaur fossils. Parkinson became famous not because of his fossils but by identifying `paralysis agitans', a condition that later was renamed Parkinson's disease.

[Cathy]

I love reading about other people’s lives, especially the ones that even tho there was a lot of adversity in their lives, they still somehow got to do something worthwhile and probably ‘what they came here to do in the first place’.

[Stanley]

I'll agree with that Cathy, the same thought has often struck me when looking at biographies.

[Stanley]

I remember reading about Zebra Fish and their ability to heal without scarring many years ago. This morning THIS came to my attention. There is going to be some serious research done into these properties.

[Tizer]

Yes, it's great because we already know so much about zebra fish. A bit like the use of dexamethasone to treat severe covid-19, a drug that's been known since about the 1960s.

[Stanley]

[Tizer]

This is a remarkable step forward and opens opportunities for many new discoveries...
`One of biology's biggest mysteries 'largely solved' by AI' LINK

[Stanley]

Peter, I read something like that and reflect on the fact that I am getting old and times change.... When I was a lad a coin operated gas meter was artificial intelligence, now it's the meaning of Life, the Universe and Everything.

[Tizer]

Better art than some of what today's `artists' produce!
`Amazon rainforest rock art depicts giant Ice Age creatures' LINK

[Stanley]

That book I was complaining about; 'Underland' had a lot on the sophistication of cave art.
What grabbed me yesterday was THIS report about the huge radio telescope project in Western Australia. Janet was a contributor to this project from the start and I remember her telling me that the memory needed to do the research was in the order of Petabytes.
THIS Will give you some idea about the sizes we are talking about and what is considered for the future.
Achievements on the scale of the survey are, to me, simply mind-boggling. I remember Janet saying that even for her it was astounding and she was working on it.

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC report that the Capsule containing the rock samples that the Japanese space craft collected has been safely recovered and has started it's slightly slower journey back to Japan for examination.
I listened to one of the researchers yesterday and this 100gm sample was collected in a matter of seconds as the satellite made a quick visit to the rock. I find it amazing that things like this can be done on tiny fragments of rock streaking through space at unimaginable speeds.

[Stanley]

I heard later that the sample size I saw reported earlier was wrong and that it was actually 0.1gm. Now of course I begin to wonder if that is right. I don't suppose it matters much, it's a wonderful achievement whatever the quantity.

[Tizer]

This latest article states 100mg but I'd heard and seen 1g stated previously...
`Hayabusa-2: Capsule with asteroid samples in 'perfect' shape' LINK

[PanBiker]

Suzuki Hayabusa (Falcon in Japanese) GSX1300R was the worlds first production motorcycle to top 300 km/h with a top speed of 312 km/h.

[Tizer]

Elon Musk will probably send one into space!

[Tizer]

Here's news from a few months ago that passed me by - I think it must have failed to get into the mainstream media. There are many reports and I've linked to two studies below. They're both concerned with explaining the causes of the Permo-Triassic extinction event...

`Coal-burning in Siberia after volcanic eruption led to climate change 250 million years ago' Science Daily

`A Greenhouse Mega-Catastrophe Killed Nearly All Life on Earth – Here’s What Happened' Sci Tech Daily

Particularly notable is the quote from Hana Jurikova, leader of the second study: “Ancient volcanic eruptions of this kind are not directly comparable to anthropogenic carbon emissions, and in fact all modern fossil fuel reserves are far too insufficient to release as much CO2 over hundreds of years, let alone thousands of years as was released 252 million years ago. But it is astonishing that humanity’s CO2 emission rate is currently fourteen times higher than the annual emission rate at the time that marked the greatest biological catastrophe in Earth’s history.”

[Stanley]

Peter. Do you think that perhaps 'mainstream media' has realised that there is enough real time catastrophe around at the moment and we don't need reminding about events that are long gone.

[Tizer]

That could be so. There was a long article in The Times weekend magazine recently by Tom Whipple, the paper's science editor, describing his experience of reporting on covid from it's beginnings to now. He's a very good science editor with an extensive network of contacts but also a family man and has a sense of humour. He describes how he was sucked into the covid story and had to drop everything else. Like many, he's been doing a lot of work from home and had to deal with distractions. One of those was due to his tortoise, Sophocles, which kept wandering off and triggering a search. Whipple fitted a bluetooth sensor to its shell which allowed him to detect Sophocles by GPS on his smartphone (and alternatively if he misplaced the phone he could use the tortoise to find it!). It worked briefly then started failing and eventually the tortoise was lost again. Whipple says this is when he realised Track & Trace for covid wasn't going to work!

[PanBiker]

I doubt if it was Bluetooth Peter, it is only short range (about 10m max). It would have to be a GPS tracker in order to use sattelite tracking. Probaly similar to what you can get as security trackers for motorbikes, cars etc.

[Stanley]

Whatever it was the tortoise was smart enough to disable it.....Now that is exciting!