Drive by science

[fragment]

Originally Posted by JoeP

Don't forget that this lava-crystal process is only done by humans who had resulted from permanent physical mergers of humans who had hatched from such crystals, in an alternation of generations.

[Ari]

Why do it once when you can do it multiple times! This little one was the size of the eye of a needle yesterday at this time, but luckily I was prepared enough to get a real photo.

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Thread on ancient wolf DNA and genetics of dog domestication

Our wolf paper is out! https://t.co/y3KQnxRlYz Analysing 72 ancient �� genomes from the last 100,000 years, we: #1 chart wolf natural history through the Ice Age, #2 directly detect natural selection, #3 reveal that dogs have dual ancestry. A �� (11), illustrations by @jessrpeto pic.twitter.com/rY3VxnMzX6

— Anders Bergström (@andersbrgstrm) June 29, 2022

[beyelzu]

We have all seen this picture by now and I think most of us probably know that it shows gravitational lensing.

Asked by Mandl to publish on the subject of gravitational lensing, Einstein at first declined, citing the fact that the phenomenon was unobservable. But Mandl persevered, and eventually, Einstein agreed to a brief publication in the journal Science:


In this brief note, Einstein also presented formulae for the optical properties of a gravitational lens. They are the exact same formulae which he had derived some 24 years earlier, right down to the formula for the magnification factor. Mandl receives an honourable mention as the person who had asked Einstein to derive and publish these results.

A brief history of gravitational lensing « Einstein-Online

Eventually we discovered quasars which turned out to be galaxies and we were able to find evidence of lensing.

The first gravitational lens was found in 1979 by Dennis Walsh, Robert F. Carswell and Ray J. Weymann, who identified the double quasar Q0957+561 as a double image of one and the same distant quasar, produced by a gravitational lens.

Einstein initially thought of double images, but reality is more complex with Einstein crosses (4 images) and rings also being possible.

[specious_reasons]

Yesterday and today was a "supermoon," so I spent some time trying to get a picture. This is pretty heavily edited and cropped, but it looks pretty good.

[JoeP]

Every day is getting shorter / Never seem to find the time

On 29 June this year, Earth racked up an unusual record: its shortest day since the 1960s, when scientists began measuring the planet’s rotation with high-precision atomic clocks.

According to Nasa, stronger winds in El Niño years can slow down the planet’s spin, extending the day by a fraction of a millisecond. Earthquakes, on the other hand, can have the opposite effect. The 2004 earthquake that unleashed a tsunami in the Indian Ocean shifted enough rock to shorten the length of the day by nearly three microseconds.

Anything that moves mass towards the centre of the Earth will speed up the planet’s rotation, much as a spinning ice skater speeds up when they pull in their arms. Geological activity that pushes mass outwards from the centre will have the opposite effect and slow down the spin.

[specious_reasons]

I saw a lovely hawk of some kind perched in a tree by my backyard. I took a bunch of photos, and while I was processing them today, I noticed two bands on the bird. Curious, I searched about this, and discovered I can report this to the USGS. If I had known about the band, I probably would have actually tried to get a better shot of them.

IMG_8873.jpg

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by specious_reasons

and discovered I can report this to the USGS.

The US Geological Survey?