Drive by science

[JoeP]

Large blue butterfly returns to Cotswolds site for first time in 150 years | Butterflies | The Guardian

Painstaking conservation effort to accommodate insect’s complex lifecycle pays off

It's very pretty butterfly.

But I thought caterpillars just chomped leaves. Check what this species does:

its unique lifecycle, with tiny caterpillars dropping off wild thyme and being taken underground by the red ant, Myrmica sabuleti, which is duped into believing that the parasitic larva is one of their own.

The ants carry it into their nests to protect the caterpillar, even “singing” to it, before it turns from herbivore into carnivore and feasts on ant grubs through the winter until it is ready to pupate. The butterfly emerges from underground the following summer.

They had to get cattle to graze the slopes so the grass would be short enough to allow the soil to warm for the ants, then introduce the red ants, and then the caterpillars.

[fragment]

But there are no butterflies in England!

[JoeP]

And this is a real thing ...

https://phys.org/news/2011-01-seismo...ic-storms.html

... Garrett Euler, using a mathematical technique called cross correlation, analyzed four arrays of broadband seismometers in Cameroon, South Africa, Ethiopia and Tanzania and found that seismic noise oscillating at 28 and 26 second periods originates in the Bight of Bonny and varies with the intensity of storm activity in the Southern Atlantic Ocean. During the largest storms, seismic waves from the Bight of Bonny are recorded by broadband seismometers all around the world.

Although the exact mechanism causing seismic noise near Africa is unknown, Euler speculates that long-period ocean waves from storms in the Southern Atlantic Ocean reflect off the coast of Africa and focus near the island of Bioko. The interaction of the waves with the shallow seafloor changes the ocean wave energy into seismic waves that travel through solid earth.

And ...

Euler wandered into the field of seismic noise in 2007 when he found consistent spikes in noise from one of 32 different seismic stations in Cameroon. The spikes turned out to correspond with joyous, celebratory foot-stomping of Cameroon’s avid soccer fans at various cities after goals were scored or key plays made during the African Cup of Nations games in 2006.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

People slept on comfy grass beds 200,000 years ago

Fragments of glassy petrified grass and microscopic traces of plant material, dating to around 200,000 years ago, are all that’s left of a Paleolithic hunter-gatherer’s bed in the back of Border Cave. In the same part of the rock shelter, archaeologists found layers of ash with more recent (as in only around 43,000 years old) and better-preserved leaves of dried grass laid on top, as if people had burned their old, dirty bedding and then laid fresh, clean sheaves of grass over the ashes—the rock shelter version of changing the sheets.

[JoeP]

I guess if you've mastered fire but not soap, burning the sheets is a pretty good way to get rids of bedbugs and mites.

The article speculates that they might have put the new grass on while the ashes of the previous bedding were still warm. Which seems a bit risky. Maybe this is what Midnight Oil were thinking of ... how can we sleep while our beds are burning?

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Funding

[BrotherMan]

May the E=MC2 be with you.

[JoeP]

You get a . But also a ...

Originally Posted by BrotherMan

May the E=MC2 be with you.

[BrotherMan]

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

When you use a forum as a reminder bookmark:

Orbiter 2016 Space Flight Simulator

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Too late to post some dubstep

[Kyuss Apollo]

Check this out: Interactive map lets you track the location of your hometown on the Earth as the planet changes over 750 million years

• The website app was developed by a software engineer using geological data
• The interactive tool tracks a changing world over hundreds of millions of years
• It was designed as way to 'easily illustrate' complex ideas such as plate tectonics

[JoeP]

It's amazing that the clouds stay in the exact same places as millions of years pass

[beyelzu]

A History of Herd Immunity - The Lancet

As many countries around the world recognised the magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic in March, 2020, some seemed to put their faith in herd immunity. UK pandemic adviser Graham Medley, for example, said that “We are going to have to generate what we call herd immunity”, which would require “a nice big epidemic”. When the idea received furious criticism, British officials denied that herd immunity had ever been part of their plan. A run at herd immunity in Sweden prompted mathematician Marcus Carlsson to object: “we are being herded like a flock of sheep toward disaster”. In August, WHO's Michael Ryan warned journalists “we are nowhere close to the levels of immunity required to stop this disease transmitting. We need to focus on what we can actually do now to suppress transmission and not live in hope of herd immunity being our salvation.” That did not end the debate. In late August sources revealed that the White House might be pondering a policy of herd immunity. Officials issued a prompt denial. The appeal of herd immunity is easy to understand: if it is reached, an epidemic ends. But the illness and death such an approach would require have prompted a strong backlash. The language of herd immunity is part of the problem. A herd usually describes domesticated animals, especially livestock. Herd animals like cows, goats, or sheep are sacrificed for human consumption. Few humans want to be part of that kind of herd.

A bit of historical perspective on the term herd immunity.

it touches on our current situation, but I dug the history, so I shared it here instead of the Rona thread.

[JoeP]

What we do have, though, is very thorough herd immunity to facts. And education. And intelligence.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Annual hurricanes for *checks notes* Canada.

Going to get nailed if it stays on this trajectory. pic.twitter.com/sB509JhJ4c

— Michael de Adder (@deAdder) September 18, 2020

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

An actual drive by.

We are monitoring a very high risk conjunction between two large defunct objects in LEO. Multiple data points show miss distance <25m and Pc between 1% and 20%. Combined mass of both objects is ~2,800kg.

Object 1: 19826
Object 2: 36123
TCA: Oct 16 00:56UTC
Event altitude: 991km pic.twitter.com/6yWDx7bziw

— LeoLabs, Inc. (@LeoLabs_Space) October 13, 2020

[JoeP]

At a slightly smaller scale:

Tardigrades' latest superpower: a fluorescent protective shield | Science | The Guardian

The most important takeaway from this is that tardigrades, as well as being called water bears which I knew, are also called moss piglets.

Also known as water bears or moss piglets, tardigrades are microscopic, water-dwelling creatures, around 0.5mm to 1mm in length, that resemble a crumpled hoover bag with eight legs.

...

Now another protective mechanism has been discovered that appears to help tardigrades cope with potentially lethal UV light, a fluorescent substance that absorbs such radiation and subsequently releases energy as blue light.

[Kyuss Apollo]

Tardigrades are on the frickin' MOON!

[Ensign Steve]

Originally Posted by JoeP

At a slightly smaller scale:

Tardigrades' latest superpower: a fluorescent protective shield | Science | The Guardian

The most important takeaway from this is that tardigrades, as well as being called water bears which I knew, are also called moss piglets.

So they fluoresce? Like microscopic fireflies.

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by Kyuss Apollo

Tardigrades are on the frickin' MOON!

Yes.

[Kyuss Apollo]

Originally Posted by JoeP

Yes.

[JoeP]

Eight year old box of Twinkies found with mummifying mystery mold

Turns out they don't in fact last forever.

[slimshady2357]

Colored droplets in corn syrup seemingly blended together can be returned to their original state by reversing the direction of mixing, a form of laminar flow called "Stokes flow".

Credit: UNM Physics & Astronomy
Source: https://t.co/2FEvRBks2p pic.twitter.com/eB2HXdkG5s

— Wonder of Science (@wonderofscience) October 26, 2020

[Ensign Steve]

Originally Posted by JoeP

Eight year old box of Twinkies found with mummifying mystery mold

Turns out they don't in fact last forever.

For real, though, and that myth baffles me.

One time I was in a break room with a few other people and a guy came to change out the snack machine and some of the Hostess-brand snack cakes had molded so badly a couple of us became borderline anaphylactic. mold spore