Technology, Science and the Environment.

[marbles]

33 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

If the Beeb suddenly have decided to go all poison pen on dear old Elon then it would be good to have a concrete reason why, and more importantly why now, and not tomorrow or yesterday. They've certainly given positive coverage of a fair few of his other ventures.

 

And with respect, the idea that Twitter was like that before he took it over is as unfounded as the assertions in the article are in terms of actual evidence, and perhaps should be qualified and shouldn't be stated as fact.

 

At the very least, he might be accountable for not doing enough to "clean it up", as you said.

 

Don't get me wrong - I think what the guy has done in terms of getting manned and other spaceflight programs moving again is superb,  but at the same time I'm not going to overlook that he, like anyone else with that kind of power, has flaws that make themselves apparent.

Story from 2021 about child exploitation

https://endsexualexploitation.org/articles/fact-check-twitters-motion-to-dismiss/

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/twitter-sued-by-sex-trafficking-survivor

 

Article about the surge during the pandemic

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/child-sexual-abuse-images-online-exploitation-surge-during-pandemic-n1190506

 

As I said, he needs to do more to clean this up - this mess that was prevalent before he took over. 

 

As for state co-ordinated disinformation.  Guess you watched none of the congressional hearings involving Twitter?

 

.

 

 

 

[leicsmac]

1 minute ago, marbles said:

Story from 2021 about child exploitation

https://endsexualexploitation.org/articles/fact-check-twitters-motion-to-dismiss/

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/twitter-sued-by-sex-trafficking-survivor

 

Article about the surge during the pandemic

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/child-sexual-abuse-images-online-exploitation-surge-during-pandemic-n1190506

 

As I said, he needs to do more to clean this up - this mess that was prevalent before he took over. 

 

As for state co-ordinated disinformation.  Guess you watched none of the congressional hearings involving Twitter?

 

 

 

I have no doubt that such behaviour existed on Twitter before the takeover. I am still wondering about whether or not it is more prevalent now than before, which is the point of the original article. And that neither of us can be sure of, but as I said before, I wouldn't be overly surprised if it were true.

[marbles]

4 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

I have no doubt that such behaviour existed on Twitter before the takeover. I am still wondering about whether or not it is more prevalent now than before, which is the point of the original article. And that neither of us can be sure of, but as I said before, I wouldn't be overly surprised if it were true.

Gotcha

I think determining if something is more/less prevalent on a site that boasts millions of new tweets a day - would be an impossibility to gauge.

What I want, is to hear about it not existing on any social media platform.     

Edited 7 March 2023 by marbles

[leicsmac]

8 minutes ago, marbles said:

Gotcha

I think determining if something is more/less prevalent on a site that boasts millions of new tweets a day - would be an impossibility to gauge.

What I want, is to hear about it not existing on any social media platform.     

And on that I think most folks would agree.

[leicsmac]

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230306-just-how-loud-is-a-rocket-launch

 

TL;DR - it's fvcking loud.

 

And some rather cool physics.

[leicsmac]

A news digest:

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-64886116

 

Good news.

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-64889284

 

Bad news.

[leicsmac]

The development of AI in the last couple of years appears to have absolutely snowballed.

 

This may or may not be a good thing.

[leicsmac]

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230317-the-epic-quest-to-build-a-permanent-moon-base

 

I hate feeling like I was born 40 years too early to see all of this come to fruition.

[leicsmac]

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65000182

 

The difference in consequences between 2 degrees C average warming and 3 (or even 4) is massive.

 

1.5 as an aim has probably gone, but keeping it under 2 would be integral.

[leicsmac]

A rather dark natural factoid:

 

One preventable, transmissible disease - just one - was responsible for more deaths in the 20th Century than all of World War I, II and all other wars in that century put together. Anywhere from 150 million to 300 million lives were taken by it.

 

Just goes to show how the natural world can at times be a more effective killer than humanity could think of being.

[SpacedX]

21 hours ago, leicsmac said:

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230317-the-epic-quest-to-build-a-permanent-moon-base

 

I hate feeling like I was born 40 years too early to see all of this come to fruition.

Of the three issues discussed here, radiation is perhaps the biggest challenge in terms of a prolonged or permanently manned presence on the moon. The six Apollo missions that landed spent only around a fortnight in total on the surface. During this time measurements confirmed that astronauts on the lunar surface absorbed a maximum of 60 microsieverts of radiation per hour which equates to 5 to 10 times higher than the rate experienced on a trans-Atlantic passenger flight and about 200 times what we get on Earth's surface - galactic cosmic rays comprising around 75% of this. The data gathered by China's Chang'e 4 has been over a duration of 4 years in comparison. This has showed that the flux of this radiation on the moon can vary between 200 and at the measured peak, up to 1,000 times that on the earth which has ramifications for manned habitation on the surface exceeding a two month period.

 

Actually, since the Apollo missions took place during the height of a solar cycle, NASA were very, very lucky. There was a solar flare during Apollo 16, but since these are directional it transpired that it had no effect on the astronauts during their voyage home. There was however an significant X class SEP event between Apollo 16 and 17 that would have called for an emergency return to earth had it struck either crew.

 

Apollo was a short sprint, whereas protection from space radiation is obviously a greater issue for future manned deep space exploration. In contrast, a moonbase can be a cavernous underground habitat protected by water within the structure. This also affords shielding from the micrometeorite impacts mentioned and temperature extremes - on the surface, in the absence of air/convection, there is only the radiative heating from the sun to consider where conduction is limited. All of the Apollo missions were timed to coincide with the lunar dawn, before the surface had reached its equilibrium temperature, but of course daytime on the moon is equivalent to around 15 earth days whilst the same period during the lunar 'night', heat will radiate away. One would venture though that main issue for an underground moonbase, would be maintaining active and passive management thermal management systems that shed rather than retain heat at the required rate.

 

Certainly, radiation, micrometeorite impacts and to a lesser extent, the heat/cold (as opposed to temperature) will present hazards to any surface operations - which is why I'd venture, these will be in the main robotic/automated. As you say, unlikely I'll see any of this, but as we again look beyond low earth obit, there may be some that are sufficiently young on this forum to watch this unfold with the same fascination, wonder and awe that I experienced with the Apollo programme.

 

 

[Otis]

8 hours ago, leicsmac said:

A rather dark natural factoid:

 

One preventable, transmissible disease - just one - was responsible for more deaths in the 20th Century than all of World War I, II and all other wars in that century put together. Anywhere from 150 million to 300 million lives were taken by it.

 

Just goes to show how the natural world can at times be a more effective killer than humanity could think of being.

Assuming you are talking about Covid 19 .

In what way was/is it preventable?

[leicsmac]

2 minutes ago, Otis said:

Assuming you are talking about Covid 19 .

In what way was/is it preventable?

Nope, I'm referring to Malaria (though Covid did outstrip human-caused numbers in terms of killing in the last three years compared to human warfare in the last thirty).

 

And malaria is rather easily preventable given adequate resources such as mosquito nets, medicines and sometimes targetted eradication programs of particular clades of mosquitoes.

 

I just find it a matter of intrigue that humans tend to focus so much in terms of time and material on what we do to each other, but overlook other causes of death and suffering that are vastly higher in terms of cost, simply because...well, I'm not actually sure.

[Otis]

3 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Nope, I'm referring to Malaria (though Covid did outstrip human-caused numbers in terms of killing in the last three years compared to human warfare in the last thirty).

 

And malaria is rather easily preventable given adequate resources such as mosquito nets, medicines and sometimes targetted eradication programs of particular clades of mosquitoes.

 

I just find it a matter of intrigue that humans tend to focus so much in terms of time and material on what we do to each other, but overlook other causes of death and suffering that are vastly higher in terms of cost, simply because...well, I'm not actually sure.

Got you.

It's a shame many African countries would rather spend greater quantities  on their military than healthcare. 

[leicsmac]

3 minutes ago, Otis said:

Got you.

It's a shame many African countries would rather spend greater quantities  on their military than healthcare. 

The same is true of a great many nations outside of Africa, too. Some of them call themselves world powers, even.

 

Edit: The point is that natural events merit the continued and undivided attention (and resources) of our species much more than the vast majority of petty conflicts within it, simply because it's a matter of fact that they cause more death and suffering. We've got our priorities as a species utterly skewed, and it really needs to change.

Edited 21 March 2023 by leicsmac

[leicsmac]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-20/giant-trapdoor-spider-species-discovered-in-queensland/102121974

 

My response to this:

 

[nnfox]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-65061818

 

This stuff is fascinating.  A cosmic near miss from a city killing asteroid.  Happening this weekend, only discovered earlier this year. 

[leicsmac]

3 hours ago, nnfox said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-65061818

 

This stuff is fascinating.  A cosmic near miss from a city killing asteroid.  Happening this weekend, only discovered earlier this year. 

Yep, another one capable of giving a population centre a very bad day.

 

We've got a lot of the larger doomsday bringers catalogued these days, but the ones this size that could still tear shit up depending on where they land (this one is about the same size as the one that came down in Tunguska in 1908) are more numerous and a bit harder to pick.

[leicsmac]

https://phys.org/news/2023-03-greenland-ice-sheet.html

 

https://phys.org/news/2023-03-highlights-overlooked-ice-loss-antarctica.html

 

Hmmmm.

[grobyfox1990]

The Lancet medical journal, offers little to smile at: just four sectors — tobacco, fossil fuels, ultra-processed food and alcohol — contribute to at least a third of all global deaths. 

“the scale of the damage caused to health and the planet is now really significant and we need to take action”.

 

Absolutely guarantee public bodies will do nothing about it, there'll be some 'studies', much like the IPCC on climate the other week, that repeat themselves for many years whilst being too weak to affect decision-making

[leicsmac]

49 minutes ago, grobyfox1990 said:

The Lancet medical journal, offers little to smile at: just four sectors — tobacco, fossil fuels, ultra-processed food and alcohol — contribute to at least a third of all global deaths. 

“the scale of the damage caused to health and the planet is now really significant and we need to take action”.

 

Absolutely guarantee public bodies will do nothing about it, there'll be some 'studies', much like the IPCC on climate the other week, that repeat themselves for many years whilst being too weak to affect decision-making

And that's the real problem that needs to be solved but cannot be solved at the same time.

[marbles]

10 hours ago, leicsmac said:

And that's the real problem that needs to be solved but cannot be solved at the same time.

Ehh, it’ll be okay

 

[leicsmac]

3 hours ago, marbles said:

Ehh, it’ll be okay

 

....I'm sure it will be.

[Jon the Hat]

14 hours ago, grobyfox1990 said:

The Lancet medical journal, offers little to smile at: just four sectors — tobacco, fossil fuels, ultra-processed food and alcohol — contribute to at least a third of all global deaths. 

“the scale of the damage caused to health and the planet is now really significant and we need to take action”.

 

Absolutely guarantee public bodies will do nothing about it, there'll be some 'studies', much like the IPCC on climate the other week, that repeat themselves for many years whilst being too weak to affect decision-making

People know the risks of smoking and drinking, but they do it anyway.  Fossils fuels are being worked on.  Not much noise on ultra processed foods really, that should be a focus.

[leicsmac]

18 minutes ago, Jon the Hat said:

People know the risks of smoking and drinking, but they do it anyway.  Fossils fuels are being worked on.  Not much noise on ultra processed foods really, that should be a focus.

Not quickly enough. And unlike the other ones in this survey, those aren't a matter of individual choice only affecting the individual (mostly, anyway).