Hello again, friends of science,
ສະບາຍດີອີກຄັ້ງ ເພື່ອນໆວິທະຍາສາດ
Over 3 million people speak Lao in Laos.
The damage to science continues unabated. Dr. Katelyn Jetelina – Your Local Epidemiologist – recommends people avoid the CDC website due to the misinformation residing there.
Yesterday, Fareed Zakaria mentioned that Pakistan’s Army Head was given immunity from prosecution. He summed up with: “Welcome to America’s new democratic export: The Unchecked Executive.” He continues on to describe how the Supreme Court’s majority has approved Presidential power well beyond – and in conflict with – the U.S. Constitution and the Federalist Papers.
Fortunately, our voices and our votes are working to impede the juggernaut’s path toward fascism. Let’s continue to be heard; it’s patriotic.
SPACE
Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is visible again in the night sky after being blocked by the Sun. Grab your binoculars and set your alarm for early morning to get a peep at an interstellar comet with the help of TheSkyLive. At best, however, you will see a tiny dot that does not appear to move. Or like me, you can Google images on the Internet. “News” about 3I/ATLAS is mostly clickbait garbage. It is off-gassing a bit more CO2 and some mineral ratios are different from Solar System comets, but other than that, it is pretty unremarkable. “I’d like to address the rumors right at the beginning,” Amit Kshatriya, the associate administrator of NASA, said during the news conference. “This object is a comet. It looks and behaves like a comet.”
A broken window is a drag, but it’s way more serious 400 km above Earth. Before 3 Taikonauts entered the Shenzhou-20 space capsule for their return to Earth from China’s Tiangong Space Station, it was hit by space debris, breaking its viewing window. Being hit head-on means colliding with debris at 55,000 kph (34,000 mph). Amazingly, China’s Space Agency launched a replacement capsule within two weeks, and the 3 Taikonauts are now back on Earth.
RAFFLE
Our raffle prize is an 18 cm high Newton’s Cradle. Get it for yourself or as a gift. Just send an email before noon Friday to david.almandsmith <at> gmail <dot> com with your guess of an integer from 1 to 1,000. Last time, the random number generator generated “613”. Ted from Virginia won with his guess of 612 and chose a black t-shirt with “Science: It’s Like Magic but Real.” Thirty-four people played.
ENVIRONMENT
¿Fishing nets with solar-powered LEDs? Over a thousand endangered Loggerhead Turtles drown each year trapped in gillnets in a Baja California fishing area. Fishermen, Arizona State University, and NOAA teamed up and created a net buoy with a solar panel to power hundreds of flashing green LEDs attached to the gillnets. Result: turtle deaths dropped by 63% without affecting the catch of fish.
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Now let’s switch to scientists working to kill millions of wild animals. Non-native predators in New Zealand are responsible for extincting dozens of native bird species, and even the iconic Kiwi is threatened. The New Zealand government is now engaged in project Predator Free 2050, to kill millions of invasive predators – rats, weasels, feral cats, and possums – by 2050. (Expect push-back from cat lovers!)
Good News! [sorta] If we humans can stop polluting the oceans with gazillions of tons of plastics, ocean microbes will gradually eat the plastics that are out there – maybe.
THINGS TO DO THIS WEEK – My Picks
Cell Atlases Are Reshaping Our Understanding of Life Monday 4:15pm, UC Berkeley
Wonderfest: Mathematics and Card Magic Tuesday 7pm, Novato
Saving the Vaquita: World’s Most Endangered Cetacean – Livestream, Wednesday 1:30
How ‘Wicked’ Reflects Real-World Intersections Between Belief and Skepticism – Livestream, Thursday 4pm
King Tide Events on Saturday
— San Rafael
— Palo Alto
— Alviso
— Menlo Park
BIOLOGY / ETHOLOGY
Functioning chloroplasts make this sea slug green. It eats algae and stores the chloroplasts within. Deprive it of food but give it plenty of light, and it will stay healthy for a month or more. The chloroplasts feed the slug just as they feed plants. Sacoglossan slugs are the only animals that use photosynthesis for nutrition. [Soldiers in the sci-fi novel “Old Man’s War” did likewise.]
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¿Are backyard raccoons becoming domesticated? Their faces are shorter than their wilderness cousins; a sign of “domestication syndrome” which also includes (1) a smaller head, (2) floppy ears, (3) changes in coloration, and (4) a tamer disposition. Check back in a couple of hundred years. In the meantime keep your distance!
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“Social” spiders are rare; Most species hunt alone. This spider colony was just discovered in a cavern bordering Albania and Greece. It spans 93 sq. meters and houses over 100,000 spiders of two separate species. Curiously, these species hunt alone above ground, and one of the species would normally eat the other. The total lack of light might be responsible for the changes in behaviour.
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Sperm Whales are being studied by Project CETI [CEtacean Translation Initiative] in the hope we will someday be able to communicate with them. They self-identify using a unique sequence of clicks and use many distinct click patterns that could be analogous to human vocalizations.
FUN NERDY VIDEOS
Novel Zero G Water Container – ISS – Tibor Kapu – 1 min
Why Sunlight Causes Sneezing – Hannah Fry – 2 mins
Peto’s Paradox & Whale Longevity – Dr. Cal your Science Pal – 2.5 mins
William Perkin and the Color Mauve – Cup O’Joe – Joe Schwarcz – 4 mins
Strandbeest 2025 – Theo Jansen – 4.5
‘Small Nuclear Reactors’ Stumble – Sabine Hossenfelder – 5 mins
Figuring Out the Dinosaurs’ Demise – PBS Eons – Michelle Barboza-Ramirez – 10.5 mins
Tipping Points: Bad & Good – PBS Weathered – Maiya May – 13.5 mins
Research on Psychedelics – Cleo Abram – 14 mins
Life Inside the Tiangong Space Station – SpaceX Insider – 17 mins
Protecting Earth from Asteroids – Huge if True – Cleo Abram & Mark Rober – 21 mins
Surprising ‘Truth’ of Evolution – Veritaseum – Derek Muller – 28.5 mins
Physics of Artificial Gravity – Pop Culture Scientist – Abigail James – 32 mins
Californium – Tales from the Periodic Table – Ron Hipschman – 36 mins
Building the International Space Station – PBS Nova – 51 mins
Alaskan Dinosaurs – PBS NOVA – 54 mins
If We Find Extraterrestrial Life >>> – Fraser Cain & Graham Lau – 61 mins
Listen and be empathetic. It will throw them off-balance,
Dave Almandsmith, Bay Area Skeptics
“The President of the United States would be an officer elected by the people for four years; the king of Great Britain is a perpetual and hereditary prince. The [President] would be amenable to personal punishment and disgrace….”
Alexander Hamilton (1757 – 1804) Federalist No. 69
Upcoming Events:
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