The Zen of Technology & Scientific Discovery! (& Robots)

[Jundo]

Images from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ground-based optical telescopes show a filament of matter and antimatter extending from a pulsar.

A small pulsar has belched out an enormous beam of matter and antimatter particles that streamed for 40 trillion miles (64 trillion kilometers) across the Milky Way.

Astronomers detected the cosmic particle trail in images captured in X-rays by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory in space and in optical light by the Gemini North telescope in Hilo, Hawaii.

Observations of X-ray filaments emitted by pulsars are rare; to date, only a handful have been detected, researchers reported in a new study.

Pulsars are dense, shrunken remnants of giant collapsed stars that emit radiation pulses as they spin, and they have powerful magnetic fields that are generated by their rapid rotation. This pulsar, known as PSR J2030+4415 (J2030 to its close friends) spins about 1,600 light-years from Earth and is relatively tiny — just 10 miles (16 km) in diameter, or about the size of a city, NASA representatives said in a statement.

This fast-spinning pulsar travels through space at about 500,000 mph (800,000 km/h) and rotates about three times per second; as it spun, charged particles escaped as a streaming filament that was then captured in telescope images.

...

https://www.livescience.com/pulsar-s...ntimatter-beam

Gassho, J

STLah

[Amelia]

Geika, our priest in San Diego, BE CAREFUL!! 'Hypercarnivore' with blade-like teeth found in San Diego, California!!

(okay, 42 million years ago!)

Had me scared there for a second! I already gotta worry about mountain lions and rattlesnakes

I went to the zoo last month and it got me thinking about what would happen to our local ecology if the San Diego Safari Park suddenly had all its animals escape into the San Pasqual Valley... O_O

Gassho
Sat, lah

[Jundo]

The source of sentience ... all that separates us from them, complexity ...

These 1-millimeter-long worms can make complex decisions with a mere 300 neurons

The worms have around 285 million times fewer nerve cells than humans

A tiny worm with just 300 brain cells has shocked scientists with its ability to make complex decisions. These invertebrate Einsteins display a range of different "smart" behaviors that vary with the situation, despite having sparse neuron power ...

When P. pacificus came across a C. elegans larvae in the lab, they bit and killed the juvenile nematodes before eating them; however, when the predatory worm went up against fully grown C. elegans, they used non-lethal bites meant to act as a territorial warning that caused C. elegans adults to move away from the bacteria. P. pacificus are perfectly capable of killing an adult C. elegans worm, but such fights likely require more energy and potentially risk injury. Therefore, researchers believe that P. pacificus worms are choosing whether or not to kill their competitors based on the size and life stage of the C. elegans. ... During the experiments, P. pacificus was also more likely to bite C. elegans when there were fewer bacteria around, regardless of their life stage, suggesting that the nematodes can factor in multiple types of information when making decisions. For a worm with only 300 neurons, this level of decision making is very surprising to researchers. The ability to weigh the costs and benefits of an action with multiple potential outcomes is seen often in vertebrates, but previously scientists thought invertebrates lacked this ability, according to the statement.

The researchers don't know exactly how P. pacificus makes such complicated decisions with so few neurons. However, when the team inhibited the worm's ability to produce dopamine, a chemical known as a neurotransmitter that is used to fire nerve cells in a majority of animals, it caused the worms to target adult C. elegans worms with territorial bites. The researchers also inhibited the worm's ability to produce octopamine, a neurotransmitter exclusively found in invertebrates, which caused the worms to focus less on adult C. elegans worms and target larvae instead. It is, therefore, likely that these two neurotransmitters play a key role in the decision-making, the researchers wrote in the paper. ...
https://www.livescience.com/worms-ma...th-300-neurons

Alas, human beings have kept the killing part ... but seem far less logical about it ...

Gassho, J

STLah

[Jundo]

Geika, our priest in San Diego, BE CAREFUL!! 'Hypercarnivore' with blade-like teeth found in San Diego, California!!

(okay, 42 million years ago!)

An unidentified fossil collected more than three decades ago was actually a mysterious species of saber-toothed carnivore that once stalked prey through the ancient rainforests of Southern California.

The fossil includes a near-complete lower jawbone and a set of well-preserved teeth, according to a new study, published Tuesday (March 15) in the journal PeerJ. Paleontologists at the San Diego Natural History Museum (The Nat) originally collected the specimen in 1988 from a site known as the Santiago Formation in Oceanside, a city in San Diego County, California. The geological formation is estimated to be about 42 million years old, so fossils from the site date back to the Eocene epoch (55.8 million to 33.9 million years ago), according to the American Museum of Natural History.

... Remains of these strange beasts have been uncovered only at select sites in Asia and North America, and prior to the new study, only 14 specimens had ever been found, according to the PeerJ report. The now-extinct group includes the earliest known saber-toothed mammalian carnivores, which are not closely related to any living carnivores.

https://www.livescience.com/newfound...othed-predator

Gassho, J

STLah

[Jundo]

Sadly, we also learn from our pioneers and failures as well ... as much knowledge was gained here.

Let us sit for Mr. Bennett, his family and doctors, and also for the animals who sacrificed for his life ...

First person to receive heart transplant from pig dies, says Maryland hospital

David Bennett dies two months after groundbreaking surgery
His condition began deteriorating several days earlier

Two months after a pioneering operation, the first person to receive a heart transplant from a pig has died, the US hospital that performed the surgery announced on Wednesday.

A handyman by trade, David Bennett, 57, had undergone the experimental procedure in Baltimore, Maryland, after suffering from heart failure and being out of other options.

Bennett died on Tuesday, the University of Maryland medical center said, adding that he was able to communicate with his family during his final hours.

Senior doctors hailed a “brave man” who had made a big contribution to advancing medical science by taking part in the surgery.

The hospital did not provide an exact cause of death but said his condition had worsened in recent days. Bennett’s son, David Bennett Jr, said his father knew the 7 January operation might not work, but was grateful to the medical community for such innovation. He had called the procedure “a miracle”.

... On Wednesday the scientific director at the University of Maryland’s animal-to-human transplant program, Dr Muhammad Mohiuddin, paid tribute to Bennett. “Mr Bennett was a brave man. Without his contribution, we couldn’t have done this procedure. He was brave enough to donate his body to science and to accept this pig heart, which many would not. We are grateful to his family who also supported during this long survival of two months.

“This is the first time a pig organ has been transplanted in a human and there are lot of unknowns that we can discover after carefully evaluating the dataA lot of new information will come out that will help the field move forward at a faster pace.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-david-bennett

Gassho, J

STLah

[Shokai]

Wow, very bright!!

gassho, Shokai

[Jundo]

Very interesting. That note accompanying the remains, perportedly to be 300 years (give or take a few), appears to be in very good condition. (Could it be it a copy and they didn't show the original?)

gassho, Shokai
stlah

Japanese washi paper can last a long time ... also SCIENCE!

https://www.nippon.com/en/views/b02321/

They have many examples which still survive in good condition from even the Heian Period, 1000+ years ago ...



Letter Known as "Kuni no Moshibumi Jo," by Fujiwara no Sukemasa, Heian period, dated 982.

Gassho, J

STLah

[Shokai]

Very interesting. That note accompanying the remains, perportedly to be 300 years (give or take a few), appears to be in very good condition. (Could it be it a copy and they didn't show the original?)

gassho, Shokai
stlah

[Jundo]

A Japanese temple mystery to be solved ... with SCIENCE!

A “mermaid mummy” kept at a temple has been an object of worship, the stuff of nightmares and a source of mystery for hundreds of years.

Now, for the first time, a project has started to scientifically analyze the mummified creature, which has the upper body of a human and the lower body of a fish.

The researchers from the Kurashiki University of Science and the Arts here and other organizations plan to announce their findings around autumn.

On Feb. 2, Kozen Kuida, 60, chief priest at Enjuin temple in Asakuchi in the prefecture [a Tendai Buddhist temple], removed the 30-centimeter-long treasured specimen from a paulownia box in the CT scanning room of the university’s veterinary hospital.

Laying face up on an examination table, the mummy appeared to be locked in a scream while holding its hands to its mouth. In addition to nails and teeth, the mummy has hair on its head and scales on the lower body.

According to a note contained in the same box of the “dried mermaid,” the creature was caught in a fishing net on the coast of Tosa Province (present-day Kochi Prefecture) between 1736 and 1741.

The Kojima family in Bingo-Fukuyama Province bought the mummy before it was passed on to other owners after the turn of the Meiji Era (1868-1912).

... Takafumi Kato, 54, a professor at the university specializing in paleontology, is in charge of the morphology analysis of the upper body of the Enjuin temple specimen. It will be his first research on a mythical creature. ... An associate professor specializing in ichthyology is focusing on the lower body, while another associate professor with expertise in molecular biology is carrying out a DNA analysis. ... The team will release their results later in the year, they said. ...


“We have worshipped it, hoping that it would help alleviate the coronavirus pandemic even if only slightly,” the head priest said. “I hope the research project can leave (scientific) records for future generations.”

https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14543351

https://youtu.be/SzJGdWeyE5Q

Gassho, J

STLah

[Meian]

All of this is why astronomy is one of my most favorite subjects. I'm not good at talking the lingo, but I love reading about it and soak up everything I can of research and how it all works. For me, the origin of all that is.

Was just discussing this (astronomy, physics, philosophy) with a student last night.

Thank you for sharing. [emoji120] Sorry for running long.

Gassho2, meian st

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

[Jundo]

As we do our best to, it often seems, end life on this planet .... fear not, for the universe which we are somehow finds a way ...

Astronomers have detected the largest organic molecule ever seen in a cloud of planet-forming dust, potentially offering new insights into the way that the building blocks of life end up on planets.

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope in Chile, researchers studied the light emitted by different molecules in the lopsided ring of dust and ice surrounding the young star IRS 48, located about 444 light-years from Earth in the constellation Ophiuchus.

Within the dusty ring, the researchers saw clear traces of an organic compound called dimethyl ether — a large molecule that's commonly detected in stellar nurseries (cold, dusty regions of space where new stars form) and is a precursor to crucial building blocks of life, such as amino acids and sugars, the team wrote in a study published Mar. 8 in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.

https://www.livescience.com/largest-...t-forming-disk

Gassho, J

STLah

[Jundo]

The Fast and the Furious ...

Largest shock wave in the universe is '60 times larger than the Milky Way,' new study finds

The wave has been blasting through space at near-light-speed for 200 million years.

... Located about 730 million light-years from Earth, Abell 3667 is a galaxy cluster in chaos. Actually composed of two clusters (or groups) of galaxies colliding into one another, Abell 3667 contains more than 550 individual galaxies slowly stirring into one big cosmic gumbo.

It's not readily apparent to most telescopes, but this cosmic collision has created an enormous disturbance in the region — a gargantuan shock wave flaring out of either side of the merging cluster, and visible only in radio wavelengths.

Now, a new study published Feb. 7 in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics offers the most detailed picture ever captured of this enormous wave. Using the MeerKAT radio telescope array in South Africa, the researchers imaged both halves of the shock wave's radio component — also called "radio relics" — and found that the structures are far more complex than previous observations indicated.

"The shock waves act as giant particle accelerators and accelerate electrons almost to the speed of light," lead study author Francesco de Gasperin, visiting scientist at the Hamburg Observatory in Germany, said in a statement. "The waves are threaded by an intricate pattern of bright filaments that trace the location of giant magnetic field lines and the regions where electrons are accelerated."

According to the researchers, the shock wave first blasted into being about 1 billion years ago, when the two galaxy clusters that make up Abell 3667 first collided. Galaxy clusters are the most enormous gravitationally-bound structures in the universe; when two of them merge, they release the largest amount of energy in a single event since the Big Bang, the researchers said.

As the wave shot electrons into space at near-light-speed, the particles tore through magnetic fields in the region, emitting the twin arcs of radio waves seen today. The researchers found that those radio arcs each move at more than 3.3 million miles per second (5.3 million kilometers per second), are about 13 million light-years apart from each other; and each measure 60 times larger than the entire Milky Way galaxy, which spans about 100,000 light-years in diameter.
https://www.livescience.com/merging-...667-shock-wave

The northern shock wave (or "radio relic") glows in radio wavelengths as electrons blast through insterstellar space.



Gassho, J

STLah

[Jundo]

I wonder if the Earth has achieved a state of cognizance in the past but maybe we modern humans are disrupting that. Of course the Earth may be trying to correct for our actions too

At the very least, Earth has a kind of "reset" function if we mess things up badly enough. Then, maybe the bug or bonobos or dolphins can have a go ...



I also mentioned in that interview on Buddhist futurism that, in my belief, it seems pretty obvious by now that life is probably scattered across myriad planets in our vast universe, some of it intelligent, something like seeds spaced far enough apart (for whatever reason) so as not to interfere with each other easily. Even if our civilization does not get it right, and makes a muck of our planet, our "cousins" in Alpha Centauri or someplace else will likely not make such mistakes, and intelligent life will go on. No worries, on the grand scale of things.

Gassho, J

STLah

[Tairin]

Thank you for posting these articles Jundo. I find this stuff fascinating. I was introduced to the Gaia Theory back in my university days. I recently read “Entangled Life” by Merlin Sheldrake (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/b...lin-sheldrake/) that talks about the effects mycorrhizal networks have on life. One of my next books to read is “The Hidden Life of Trees” by Peter Wohlleben (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/...-life-of-trees).

I wonder if the Earth has achieved a state of cognizance in the past but maybe we modern humans are disrupting that. Of course the Earth may be trying to correct for our actions too


Tairin
Sat today and lah

[Tai Shi]

Yes, the common ancestry, and our first cities living together as one harmonious group, and then that was time. 25,000 years ago.
Gassho
sat/ lah