This is a repository for all cool scientific discussion and fascination. Scientific facts, theories, and overall cool scientific stuff that you'd like to share with others. Stuff that makes you smile and wonder at the amazing shit going on around us, that most people don't notice.
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Speaking of safety... who wants to make their own homemade solid fuel rocket?
Homemade Sugar Rocket
Cook up a solid-fuel rocket engine and let it fly.
In this project, you’ll combine two commonly available substances — granulated sugar and potassium nitrate — to make a powerful engine that can propel a small sugar rocket to impressive heights. This method involves melting a mixture of sugary fuel and chemical oxidizer (the potassium nitrate) over an electric hot plate and then pouring it into a paper rocket body where it solidifies into a rock-hard casting containing an incredible amount of chemical energy.
CAUTION: Undertake this project at your own risk. You are literally playing with fire, so understand what you’re getting into and don’t sell the dangerous aspects of this activity short. Sugar rocket fuel burns fiercely — do not ignite it until it’s contained in a completed motor. Follow all instructions and safety precautions carefully.
I just discovered a new streaming channel, Curiosity Stream. They have lots of documentaries. You have to pay but there is a free trial. I like it so far though and will probably keep it because I find Netflix’s options to be very limited. [Reply]
Machines can already outplay us in chess, poker and other games, and now they are becoming better readers as well.
AI programs from both Microsoft and Alibaba outperformed humans earlier this month on a reading comprehension data set developed at Stanford. “Crowdworkers” scraped more than 500 Wikipedia articles to produce more than 100,000 question-and-answer sets for the test.
Not the MOST innovative by today's standards, but an interesting insight into the engineering required when the need for accuracy surpassed present known capabilties. Kind of analogous to how the Iphone X has more processing power than all of NASA did during the moon mission.
Six million years ago the Mediterranean Sea was a very different place than it is today. Plate tectonics had closed the Strait of Gibraltar separating modern-day Spain and Morocco, leaving the Mediterranean cut off from the Atlantic Ocean. The newly enclosed sea succumbed to evaporation, its water level falling by thousands of meters, turning it into a desertlike environment pockmarked with shallow pools as salty as today’s Dead Sea. One hypothesis suggests a megaflood rapidly refilled the Mediterranean. Now, a study of buried ocean sediments near Sicily shows this flood may have washed all the way into the sea’s partially filled eastern basin via a waterfall about 1,500 meters high. Floods have punctuated the Earth’s history, but the “Zanclean megaflood”—so named for the geologic age during which it occurred (from 5.3 million to 3.6 million years ago)—is thought to be the largest ever, the new research, published in January in Scientific Reports reveals. These findings build on a 2009 Nature study, which showed water violently rushed into the desiccated Mediterranean after shifting tectonic plates reopened the Strait of Gibraltar. The deluge carved a 200-kilometer-long channel along the seafloor as it filled the western part of the basin. [Reply]
Geez Louise. That was an interesting story, but why on earth did you present it here in the form of some half-drunk goober fumbling over trying to read the article that's right there on the screen instead of just posting the article itself, or a better summary or visualization. [Reply]
Last year after the march a group of scientists called "Mad Scientists" had a pub crawl to our local breweries. We happened to see them at the first brewery. We followed along with them. They were so much fun. Most were millennial's, finishing school or recent grads but they accepted us. Most fun we have ever had on a pub crawl. [Reply]
Last year after the march a group of scientists called "Mad Scientists" had a pub crawl to our local breweries. We happened to see them at the first brewery. We followed along with them. They were so much fun. Most were millennial's, finishing school or recent grads but they accepted us. Most fun we have ever had on a pub crawl.
Six million years ago the Mediterranean Sea was a very different place than it is today. Plate tectonics had closed the Strait of Gibraltar separating modern-day Spain and Morocco, leaving the Mediterranean cut off from the Atlantic Ocean. The newly enclosed sea succumbed to evaporation, its water level falling by thousands of meters, turning it into a desertlike environment pockmarked with shallow pools as salty as today’s Dead Sea. One hypothesis suggests a megaflood rapidly refilled the Mediterranean. Now, a study of buried ocean sediments near Sicily shows this flood may have washed all the way into the sea’s partially filled eastern basin via a waterfall about 1,500 meters high. Floods have punctuated the Earth’s history, but the “Zanclean megaflood”—so named for the geologic age during which it occurred (from 5.3 million to 3.6 million years ago)—is thought to be the largest ever, the new research, published in January in Scientific Reports reveals. These findings build on a 2009 Nature study, which showed water violently rushed into the desiccated Mediterranean after shifting tectonic plates reopened the Strait of Gibraltar. The deluge carved a 200-kilometer-long channel along the seafloor as it filled the western part of the basin.
Wow! Proof of a megaflood. Imagine that. Their timeline is off by a few million years. But they're on the right track. Baby steps. [Reply]
Originally Posted by jjchieffan:
Wow! Proof of a megaflood. Imagine that. Their timeline is off by a few million years. But they're on the right track. Baby steps.
This is why we need a Cherry Picking emoji. [Reply]