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It will be interesting to see if this goes ahead: Kilogram set to be redefined, heralding a new era of measurement

Since 1889, one kilogram has been defined as the mass of a platinum and iridium cylinder. The idea being that both metals are resistant to corrosion, so the mass doesn't change over time. But apparently there has been some variation between copies - a few micrograms.

So this definition of the kilogram could change to be tied to Planck's constant - depending on the result of a vote.
 
Werewolf said:
It will be interesting to see if this goes ahead: Kilogram set to be redefined, heralding a new era of measurement

Since 1889, one kilogram has been defined as the mass of a platinum and iridium cylinder. The idea being that both metals are resistant to corrosion, so the mass doesn't change over time. But apparently there has been some variation between copies - a few micrograms.

So this definition of the kilogram could change to be tied to Planck's constant - depending on the result of a vote.
Click to expand...

Yep it's happened.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11...auled-by-scientists-in-historic-vote/10506974

I must say it always seemed weird to me that this was the last "hold out" unit of measurement to be defined like this. Was there a good reason for this?
 

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GreyCrow said:
Told you I'm not as fat as people say
Click to expand...
If the definition of the metre was changed to be the distance travelled by light in 1/300,000,000th of a second, my height would increase by 1.2mm! Apparently it's been suggested, but it won't happen because that would mean most physical constants would have to be adjusted.
 
SCIENTISTS CLAIM TO HAVE DISCOVER WHAT EXISTED BEFORE THE BEGINNING OF THE UNIVERSE

Physics & Astronomy Zone December 06, 2018

There are many scientific and non-scientific varieties of the answer about what came before Big Bang. Some say there was literally nothing and some say a black hole or a multiverse. But now a group of mathematicians from Canada and Egypt have analyzed some cutting edge scientific theory and a complex set of equations to find what preceded the universe in which we live. Their research paper has been published in Nature.

To explain it in simple and easily understandable terms; they applied the theories of the very small i.e. the world of quantum mechanics, to the entire universe - explained by general theory of relativity, and discovered the universe essentially goes through four different phases.

More importantly they discovered what came before this universe was.. Another universe or more accurately another ‘cosmological phase’.

Despite being infinite in size our universe is cyclical and has always existed in one of four stages.

The universe is expanding, and the expansion is speeding up, but the team believes that certain modification motivated by quantum mechanics will ultimately halt the expansion and pull the whole lot back to a near infinite point – at which stage the universe will start expanding again.

The paper, called ''Non-singular and Cyclic Universe from the Modified GUP'', written by Maha Salah, Fayçal Hammad, Mir Faizal, Ahmed Farag Ali, is super complex but Prof. Mir Faizal outlined the main points of this paper.
According to him they have incorporated quantum mechanical effects in cosmology using an approach called the modified GUP.

This approach changes the equation for cosmology in a very interesting way. It predicts four distinct phases for our universe - the present phase of the universe being just one of those phases.

There is a phase before the big bang in this cosmological model, and it is possible to know about that phase of the universe by studying the physics of present phase of our universe.

Professor Mir Faizal said:

In our cosmological model the universe did not start with the big bang, but there was a phase transition from one phase of the universe to another. This is possible because the universe can exist in four different phases, like ordinary water can exist in three different phases. Just as we can know about the properties of ice, by studying water which has formed from it, we can know about pre big bang cosmology by studying the physics of this universe.

In their model they have been able to study the pre Big Bang state of the universe. The equations in their model predict that the expansion of the universe will come to a halt and then will immediately be followed by a contracting phase.

Prof Mir added:

When the equations are extrapolated beyond the maximum rate of contraction, a cyclic universe scenario emerges. “Other cosmologists have suggested a big bang and big crunch scenario – but those model have singularities. Singularities are bad in physics as they indicate a place where the laws of physics breakdown, and at such places one cannot use physics to get meaningful results. This new cosmological model does away with such singularity. The big bang singularity can therefore also be avoided by using the modified GUP-corrections to the cosmology.

In their cosmology model, the cyclic nature of the universe occurs as a result of incorporating quantum effects into a cosmological model of the universe.

https://www.physics-astronomy.org/2018/12/scientists-claim-to-have-discover-what.html
 
Snake_Baker said:
SCIENTISTS CLAIM TO HAVE DISCOVER WHAT EXISTED BEFORE THE BEGINNING OF THE UNIVERSE

Physics & Astronomy Zone December 06, 2018

There are many scientific and non-scientific varieties of the answer about what came before Big Bang. Some say there was literally nothing and some say a black hole or a multiverse. But now a group of mathematicians from Canada and Egypt have analyzed some cutting edge scientific theory and a complex set of equations to find what preceded the universe in which we live. Their research paper has been published in Nature.

To explain it in simple and easily understandable terms; they applied the theories of the very small i.e. the world of quantum mechanics, to the entire universe - explained by general theory of relativity, and discovered the universe essentially goes through four different phases.

More importantly they discovered what came before this universe was.. Another universe or more accurately another ‘cosmological phase’.

Despite being infinite in size our universe is cyclical and has always existed in one of four stages.

The universe is expanding, and the expansion is speeding up, but the team believes that certain modification motivated by quantum mechanics will ultimately halt the expansion and pull the whole lot back to a near infinite point – at which stage the universe will start expanding again.

The paper, called ''Non-singular and Cyclic Universe from the Modified GUP'', written by Maha Salah, Fayçal Hammad, Mir Faizal, Ahmed Farag Ali, is super complex but Prof. Mir Faizal outlined the main points of this paper.
According to him they have incorporated quantum mechanical effects in cosmology using an approach called the modified GUP.

This approach changes the equation for cosmology in a very interesting way. It predicts four distinct phases for our universe - the present phase of the universe being just one of those phases.

There is a phase before the big bang in this cosmological model, and it is possible to know about that phase of the universe by studying the physics of present phase of our universe.

Professor Mir Faizal said:

In our cosmological model the universe did not start with the big bang, but there was a phase transition from one phase of the universe to another. This is possible because the universe can exist in four different phases, like ordinary water can exist in three different phases. Just as we can know about the properties of ice, by studying water which has formed from it, we can know about pre big bang cosmology by studying the physics of this universe.

In their model they have been able to study the pre Big Bang state of the universe. The equations in their model predict that the expansion of the universe will come to a halt and then will immediately be followed by a contracting phase.

Prof Mir added:

When the equations are extrapolated beyond the maximum rate of contraction, a cyclic universe scenario emerges. “Other cosmologists have suggested a big bang and big crunch scenario – but those model have singularities. Singularities are bad in physics as they indicate a place where the laws of physics breakdown, and at such places one cannot use physics to get meaningful results. This new cosmological model does away with such singularity. The big bang singularity can therefore also be avoided by using the modified GUP-corrections to the cosmology.

In their cosmology model, the cyclic nature of the universe occurs as a result of incorporating quantum effects into a cosmological model of the universe.

https://www.physics-astronomy.org/2018/12/scientists-claim-to-have-discover-what.html
Click to expand...
I had heard of this as Balloon theory. Except instead of exploding as it reaches its peak it shrinks back to nothingness and starts expanding again.
 
kickazz said:
But was was here before that. That's what ****s with my mind.
Click to expand...
:D thats why God was invented, to stop you freaking out

The theory seems to be it deflated to near zero then starts expanding again. (but explain where all the planets go greycrow)

They blow up and the rest is squeezed into dust that reforms
 
Room temperature superconductors?

Viewpoint: Pushing Towards Room-Temperature Superconductivity

Eva Zurek, Department of Chemistry, University at Buffalo, SUNY, Buffalo NY, USA

January 14, 2019• Physics 12, 1

Superconductivity, the ability of a material to conduct electricity without any resistance, was first observed in 1911 in solid mercury below a critical temperature (Tc) of 4.2 K. Ever since, countless scientists have been searching for a material whose Tc exceeds room temperature. For a long time this holy grail seemed unattainable—a linear extrapolation of research progress from 1911 to 1970 suggested that Tc would reach room temperature around the year 2840! The discovery of high-temperature superconductivity in copper oxides raised Tc above liquid helium temperature. Since 1994, one of the copper oxides has held the record for the highest Tc (133 K at atmospheric pressure and 164 K under high pressure). Despite intense research, it took another 20 years to beat this record in a completely new class of systems: In 2015, the compression of hydrogen sulfide to 150 GPa, or about 40% of the pressure found in Earth’s core, yielded a Tc of 203 K [1]. Remarkably, two independent groups, the first led by Russell Hemley at the George Washington University in Washington, DC [2], and the second by Mikhail Eremets at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Germany [3], have now reported experiments indicating that a hydride of lanthanum compressed to 170–185 GPa has a Tc of 250–260 K [2, 3]. The results bode well for the search for room-temperature superconductors—the reported materials could already work without the need for cooling on an average winter night in the Arctic!

https://physics.aps.org/articles/v12/1?utm_campaign=weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_source=emailalert
 
Snake_Baker said:
Room temperature superconductors?
Click to expand...
This is incredible - I imagine there is some point where the power required to cool a transmission system to superconductivity becomes smaller than the loss of power (attenuation is the right term?) and the economics work in favour of cool transmission models. The industry then starts and scalability provides the next steps.

Do you know if the power loss is closer to linear or logarithmic as temperature approaches the optimum for superconductivity?
 

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Mofra said:
This is incredible - I imagine there is some point where the power required to cool a transmission system to superconductivity becomes smaller than the loss of power (attenuation is the right term?) and the economics work in favour of cool transmission models. The industry then starts and scalability provides the next steps.

Do you know if the power loss is closer to linear or logarithmic as temperature approaches the optimum for superconductivity?
Click to expand...


I'm glad someone has commented on the implications here. If this turns out to be successful, then it will literally change the world.

As for discussing any detailed physics with you, I wouldn't dare. There's other around here who are better versed.
 
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I've been banned from the https://geneticliteracyproject.org because for many years I have been pointing out all the nasty things neonicotinoids do to bees, I think the evidence in 2019 is pretty overwhelming that they are basically the cause of colony collapse disorder. This is what I wanted to post, so I have posted it here:

"As of 2019 there have been many studies showing deleterious effects of neonicotinoids on all levels of bee development and behavoir, at levels seen in the wild.
The effects on gene expression are now known - https://www.selectscience.net/edito...icides-found-to-affect-bee-genes/?artID=48980
Social behavoir - https://e360.yale.edu/digest/neonicotinoids-impact-bees-nursing-and-social-behaviors-study-finds
Foraging - https://phys.org/news/2019-04-tiny-neonicotinoid-pesticides-impair-insects.html
Housekeeping and mites - https://phys.org/news/2019-04-neonics-hinder-bees-ability-fend.html

Please do not believe anything geneticliteracyproject.org says about neonicotinoids, it is not a science site, it is an industry propaganda site and Jon Entine is an industry shill, of the worst kind."

It may not just be bees https://www.scientificamerican.com/...more-places-safety-concerns-mount/?redirect=1
 
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Gosh, 2 posts in a row!
This paper https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10055-w is a really, really important paper that everyone in the biological sciences must read. Intracellular signalling has had been a bit of a mystery, this paper describes an intracellular network of nanocourses delineated by membrane-membrane nanojunctions of the sarcoplasmic reticulum, which provide discrete lines of communication that span the entire cell and use Ca++ flux to carry signals. Real breakthrough, essentially it's shows how the cell is 'totally wired'.

"…relatively small net increases in local Ca2+ flux (1–2 ions per picolitre) will therefore be sufficient to raise the local concentration into the affinity ranges of most cytoplasmic Ca2+ binding proteins. Ca2+ binding proteins may thus operate as local ‘switches’ that coordinate nanocourse-specific functions, the probability of moving from OFF to ON determined by changes in unitary rather than macroscopic Ca2+ flux. Significantly, coincident Ca2+ flux can thus be triggered in two distant parts of the cell at the same time, to coordinate, for example, myocyte relaxation and associated gene expression regulation. This draws obvious parallels to mechanisms of conduction in single-walled carbon nanotubes, which behave as quantum wires that transmit charge carriers through discrete conduction channels, enabling memory, logic and parallel processing. Thus, by analogy, our observations point to the incredible signalling potential that may be afforded by modulating quantum Ca2+ flux on the nanoscale, in support of network activities within cells with the capacity to permit stimulus-dependent orchestration of the full panoply of diverse cellular processes.

Perhaps more importantly, the cellular intranet conferred by the Sarcoplasmic Reticulum and its associated network activities are not hardwired, reconfiguring to deliver different outputs during phenotypic modulation on the path, for example, to cell proliferation. This in itself suggests that cytoplasmic nanocourses may be common to but vary in nature between different cell types."

Can't wait someone takes a squiz at neurons. If this turns out to be correct, these scientists will get a Nobel prize.
 
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theconversation.com

Pseudoscience is taking over social media – and putting us all at risk

New evidence suggests most YouTube videos on climate change deny its existence.
theconversation.com theconversation.com

The effects of misinformation surrounding the MMR vaccine and Nipah virus on human behaviour should not be surprising given we know that our memory is malleable. Our recollection of original facts can be replaced with new, false ones. We also know conspiracy theories have a powerful appeal as they can help people make sense of events or issues they feel they have no control over.
 
I like Tardigrades even more now.

www.theguardian.com

Tardigrades may have survived spacecraft crashing on moon

Scientists believe the Beresheet’s unusual cargo may be alive and well on the moon
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

The odds of finding life on the moon have suddenly rocketed skywards. But rather than elusive alien moonlings, the beings in question came from Earth and were spilled across the landscape when a spacecraft crashed into the surface.

The Israeli Beresheet probe was meant to be the first private lander to touch down on the moon. And all was going smoothly until mission controllers lost contact in April as the robotic craft made its way down. Beyond all the technology that was lost in the crash, Beresheet had an unusual cargo: a few thousand tiny tardigrades, the toughest animals on Earth.
Now, the organisation behind the tardigrades’ trip, the US-based Arch Mission Foundation – whose goal is to find a backup for Earth – has said the organisms may well have shrugged off the collision. “Our payload may be the only surviving thing from that mission,” Nova Spivack, the organisation’s founder, told Wired magazine.

Tardigrades have fascinated scientists since their discovery in the 18th century by the German zoologist and pastor Johann August Ephraim Goeze. The millimetre-long animals, sometimes known as water bears or moss piglets after their favoured environment and food, resemble cheerful eight-legged maggots wearing distinctly sphincter-like faces.
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