Technology, Science and the Environment.

[nnfox]

1 hour ago, leicsmac said:

If life is found to exist in such an extreme environment as that, I'd lay very good money that it is not the only place in our own Solar System where such life might be found.

My personal take on it is that the universe is teeming with life.  As soon as we develop techniques to detect it, we'll find it everywhere.

 

Intelligent life on other planets? That's much rarer.  It's out there, I'm sure, but I don't think we'll find it in my lifetime.

[whoareyaaa]

1 hour ago, leicsmac said:

If life is found to exist in such an extreme environment as that, I'd lay very good money that it is not the only place in our own Solar System where such life might be found.

must have been life on mars, we probably came from there.

[SpacedX]

1 hour ago, nnfox said:

My personal take on it is that the universe is teeming with life.  As soon as we develop techniques to detect it, we'll find it everywhere.

 

Intelligent life on other planets? That's much rarer.  It's out there, I'm sure, but I don't think we'll find it in my lifetime.

But we probably won't in terms of sentient life forms - because temporally and spatially the separation is too far. 

 

If not Venus, single cellular organisms or bacteria, or evidence of their previous existence, I expect to be discovered within the solar system by the end of the century. Particularly if we continue to explore Mars or manage to probe the depths of a moon with an ice covered ocean such as Europa. 

Edited 14 September 2020 by Line-X

[worthosoriginals]

3 hours ago, Vacamion said:

 

The worst thing about reading stuff about Venus on Twitter is the amount of astrology stuff you have to scroll past. 

 

 

 

Vac, as you probably know, a lot of humans are superstitious, gullible twats. Sod the science, what's my horoscope saying in the daily star?

Cos that will be accurate and factual. 

Some humans haven't evolved above amoeba, let alone above chimps. 

[Free Falling Foxes]

1 minute ago, worthosoriginals said:

Vac, as you probably know, a lot of humans are superstitious, gullible twats. Sod the science, what's my horoscope saying in the daily star?

Cos that will be accurate and factual. 

Some humans haven't evolved above amoeba, let alone above chimps. 

Are you a Taurus?

[worthosoriginals]

25 minutes ago, Free Falling Foxes said:

Are you a Taurus?

Nope, I'm a cross between a capricorn and a Leo, I'm a leprechaun. 

[whoareyaaa]

did no one see the tic tac video they are already here 

 

 

[WigstonWanderer]

5 hours ago, Jon the Hat said:

Ah yes a completely impossible to implement idea.  That will fix it!

I agree it is isn’t as straight forward as just adding 10% or 20% to the cost of items, and would take someone much cleverer than me to devise, but I refuse to believe it’s impossible to replace something as arbitrary as VAT with something designed to help guide consumer behaviour towards protection of the environment. Perhaps levied on primary producers like fossil fuels, miners, selective farming, etc, and allowed to work through the system as additional costs to finished goods.

 

Start with the most damaging industries first.

Edited 14 September 2020 by WigstonWanderer

[Bellend Sebastian]

4 hours ago, The Bear said:

Venus is the last place in the solar system, other than the Sun, that you'd expect to find any sort of life! Mental. 

I keep hearing this and think it's very disrespectful.

 

The Venutian farting microbes are probably listening to this sort of stuff and thinking 'that's a bit rich coming from that lot'.

 

Thinking of asking them to come to Earth to sort us out

[leicsmac]

6 hours ago, Line-X said:

But we probably won't in terms of sentient life forms - because temporally and spatially the separation is too far. 

 

If not Venus, single cellular organisms or bacteria, or evidence of their previous existence, I expect to be discovered within the solar system by the end of the century. Particularly if we continue to explore Mars or manage to probe the depths of a moon with an ice covered ocean such as Europa. 

Mars, Europa and Enceladus are all promising candidates.

[Jon the Hat]

12 hours ago, WigstonWanderer said:

I agree it is isn’t as straight forward as just adding 10% or 20% to the cost of items, and would take someone much cleverer than me to devise, but I refuse to believe it’s impossible to replace something as arbitrary as VAT with something designed to help guide consumer behaviour towards protection of the environment. Perhaps levied on primary producers like fossil fuels, miners, selective farming, etc, and allowed to work through the system as additional costs to finished goods.

 

Start with the most damaging industries first.

We are already seeing a huge shift from fossil fuels to green energy, so I would see that as unnecessary.

[leicsmac]

5 minutes ago, Jon the Hat said:

We are already seeing a huge shift from fossil fuels to green energy, so I would see that as unnecessary.

Judging by current events, it is not happening fast nor effectively enough, though.

 

Of course, it's a global problem which makes applying solutions that also helps the whole globe very difficult.

[RoboFox]

On 11/09/2020 at 05:08, The Bear said:

No doubt Donny and his ilk will assure every one it has nothing to do with climate change. 

When challenged, he just fvcking stands there, smirking and making jokes about it... Then flatly denies that science is the answer. 

 

This is the President of the United States. There are no words.

 

 

[leicsmac]

16 minutes ago, RoboFox said:

When challenged, he just fvcking stands there, smirking and making jokes about it... Then flatly denies that science is the answer. 

 

This is the President of the United States. There are no words.

 

 

The man and those who follow him are, mostly, the embodiment of short term self interest over the long term future of...well, a lot. The ignorance is mainly a smokescreen to disguise that self interest, IMO - they know what the situation is, they just think it's irrelevant to them personally.

[twoleftfeet]

Proper Science

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54197198

[leicsmac]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54180049

 

Horrible.

[SpacedX]

9 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54180049

 

Horrible.

A friend of mine who lives in Covina, LA sent me videos of a thick blood orange sky and a blizzard of ash from the fire raging in the Angeles National Forest. The temperatures that week had reached 117 °F

[Bellend Sebastian]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-53640382

 

Despite its title this is really about the lengths that corporations use misinformation to further their own interests.

 

It's interesting, probably not that surprising and also quite depressing how effective this strategy has been. The bit about targeting certain demographics made me sad in particular, as I can see the results of this in folk pretty close to home

[leicsmac]

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54208995

 

Climate do-nothings: "Addressing climate change will badly affect poor people in less developed countries!"

 

The aforementioned poor people: "We know. Do it anyway."

 

Climate do-nothings: "Ummm..."

 

[SpacedX]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-54211760

[leicsmac]

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54246485

 

Back to the Moon! It's long past time.

[leicsmac]

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54256826

 

One of those things where talk is cheap, but seeing as the Chinese don't tend to make such sweeping statements without the ability to back them up (given how obsessed they are with face) I'd say they're probably capable of it.

[leicsmac]

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54329813

 

Humans started the current great extinction event. They can stop it too. Just takes the political will.

[Vacamion]

 

This can't be true, can it? Massive if it is true.

 

 

[WigstonWanderer]

4 hours ago, Vacamion said:

 

This can't be true, can it? Massive if it is true.

 

 

Can’t read due to the firewall, but Is it this one?

 

https://news.mit.edu/2020/physics-fusion-studies-0929

 

"The MIT group is pursuing a very compelling approach to fusion energy." says Chris Hegna, a professor of engineering physics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who was not connected to this work. "They realized the emergence of high-temperature superconducting technology enables a high magnetic field approach to producing net energy gain from a magnetic confinement system. This work is a potential game-changer for the international fusion program."

 

I remember reading about this some time ago and then lost track. Sounds like it might beat ITER’s “design by committee” brute force technology.