Science 'n Shtein

[General_Failure]

Dreadnoughtus, a 130,000-Pound Dinosaur That Wasn't Done Growing

Eighty-five feet long, 30 feet tall, 130,000 pounds and still growing when it died, this dinosaur is among the largest land animals that ever lived — so big its discoverers are calling it the Dreadnoughtus.

Its skeleton, unearthed in the Patagonia region of Argentina, is the first of this species and most complete ever found of this group of gargantuan dinosaurs known as titanosaurs, scientists reported on Thursday. A team led by Kenneth J. Lacovara, a paleontologist at Drexel University in Philadelphia, describe the fossil in the journal Scientific Reports.

[PhillyPhreak54]

Woman plays violin during her brain surgery

http://www.khou.com/story/news/health/2014/09/13/woman-plays-violin-during-her-brain-surgery/15581771/

(Sent from KHOU 11)

That is farging cool. And weird.

[Eagaholic]

Cool for her playing. As long as she didn't hit a spinal chord.

[PhillyPhreak54]

hahaha booooooooooooo

[Eagaholic]

fine, suture self.

[hbionic]

You strung those two jokes together quite well!

[PhillyPhreak54]

GF needs to set an alert for Rome's iPhone 6 for when punny comments are made

[ice grillin you]

ROME

[General_Failure]

The "first man-made biological leaf" could enable humans to colonise space


http://vimeo.com/101734446

[Tomahawk]

Ka-Pow: Watch These Fish Cannons Shoot Salmon Safely Over Dams

Salmon have serious swimming skills--some travel thousands of miles to return to their original homes to breed. But even though they can jump as high as 12 feet in the air, they can't manage to get over massive concrete dams that we have built to block their journeys back to their homes. Now one new idea could give them a boost. The plan involves whisking the fish through a long vacuum tube at speeds up to 22 mph and then shooting them out the other end like a cannon.

I'm not a civil engineer, but I'm pretty sure "we" didn't build those dams with the specific purpose of blocking their journey.

[hbionic]

icehole, this whole time I thought you were a civil engineer. So, you were just simply a mildly retarded drooling mongoloid this whole time?

[Tomahawk]

Still am a moderately retarded drooling mongoloid

[General_Failure]

Mantis shrimps can see cancer, and scientists have now created a camera that does the same

We see colour with hues and shades, and objects that contrast – a red apple in a green tree for example – but our research is revealing a number of animals that use polarised light to detect and discriminate between objects."

His team have now worked with international collaborators to create a camera that can replicate this ability - eventually they hope they could lead to smartphone cameras that would allow people to scan their body for cancers at home.

"The camera that we've developed in close collaboration with US and UK scientists shoots video and could provide immediate feedback on detecting cancer and monitoring the activity of exposed nerve cells," said Marshall.

They did this by revealing that the compound eye of the mantis shrimp contains groups of photocells called ommatidia. Each of these ommatidium has thin micro-villi that can filter polarised light, as well as light-sensitive receptors.

To mimic this in the camera, the scientists used aluminium nanowires to replicate the polarisation-filtering microvilli, and placed these on top of photodiodes, which convert light into electrical current.

[Eagaholic]

Is fusion finally here?

Lockheed says makes breakthrough on fusion energy project

(Reuters) - Lockheed Martin Corp said on Wednesday it had made a technological breakthrough in developing a power source based on nuclear fusion, and the first reactors, small enough to fit on the back of a truck, could be ready for use in a decade.

Tom McGuire, who heads the project, said he and a small team had been working on fusion energy at Lockheed's secretive Skunk Works for about four years, but were now going public to find potential partners in industry and government for their work.

Initial work demonstrated the feasibility of building a 100-megawatt reactor measuring seven feet by 10 feet, which could fit on the back of a large truck, and is about 10 times smaller than current reactors, McGuire told reporters.

In a statement, the company, the Pentagon's largest supplier, said it would build and test a compact fusion reactor in less than a year, and build a prototype in five years.

In recent years, Lockheed has gotten increasingly involved in a variety of alternate energy projects, including several ocean energy projects, as it looks to offset a decline in U.S. and European military spending.

Lockheed's work on fusion energy could help in developing new power sources amid increasing global conflicts over energy, and as projections show there will be a 40 percent to 50 percent increase in energy use over the next generation, McGuire said.

If it proves feasible, Lockheed's work would mark a key breakthrough in a field that scientists have long eyed as promising, but which has not yet yielded viable power systems. The effort seeks to harness the energy released during nuclear fusion, when atoms combine into more stable forms.

"We can make a big difference on the energy front," McGuire said, noting Lockheed's 60 years of research on nuclear fusion as a potential energy source that is safer and more efficient than current reactors based on nuclear fission.

Lockheed sees the project as part of a comprehensive approach to solving global energy and climate change problems.

Compact nuclear fusion would produce far less waste than coal-powered plants since it would use deuterium-tritium fuel, which can generate nearly 10 million times more energy than the same amount of fossil fuels, the company said.

Ultra-dense deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen, is found in the earth's oceans, and tritium is made from natural lithium deposits.

It said future reactors could use a different fuel and eliminate radioactive waste completely.

McGuire said the company had several patents pending for the work and was looking for partners in academia, industry and among government laboratories to advance the work.

Lockheed said it had shown it could complete a design, build and test it in as little as a year, which should produce an operational reactor in 10 years, McGuire said. A small reactor could power a U.S. Navy warship, and eliminate the need for other fuel sources that pose logistical challenges.

U.S. submarines and aircraft carriers run on nuclear power, but they have large fission reactors on board that have to be replaced on a regular cycle.

"What makes our project really interesting and feasible is that timeline as a potential solution," McGuire said.

Lockheed shares fell 0.6 percent to $175.02 amid a broad market selloff

[General_Failure]

The European Space Agency just landed a probe on a comet 317 million miles away.