Science news of the day thread.

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Re: Science news of the day thread.

Post by rasetsu » Sun Oct 02, 2022 2:17 pm

Not exactly news, but I found it interesting. Pardon if this has already been shared.
A jarring divide cleaves modern physics. On one side lies quantum theory, which portrays subatomic particles as probabilistic waves. On the other lies general relativity, Einstein’s theory that space and time can bend, causing gravity. For 90 years, physicists have sought a reconciliation, a more fundamental description of reality that encompasses both quantum mechanics and gravity. But the quest has run up against thorny paradoxes.

Hints are mounting that at least part of the problem lies with a principle at the center of quantum mechanics, an assumption about how the world works that seems so obvious it’s barely worth stating, much less questioning.

Unitarity, as the principle is called, says that something always happens. When particles interact, the probability of all possible outcomes must sum to 100%. Unitarity severely limits how atoms and subatomic particles might evolve from moment to moment. It also ensures that change is a two-way street: Any imaginable event at the quantum scale can be undone, at least on paper. These requirements have long guided physicists as they derive valid quantum formulas. “It’s a very restrictive condition, even though it might seem a little bit trivial at first glance,” said Yonatan Kahn, an assistant professor at the University of Illinois.

But what once seemed an essential scaffold may have become a stifling straitjacket preventing physicists from reconciling quantum mechanics and gravity. “Unitarity in quantum gravity is a very open question,” said Bianca Dittrich, a theorist at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Canada.

The main problem is that the universe is expanding. This expansion is well described by general relativity. But it means that the future of the cosmos looks totally different from its past, while unitarity demands a tidy symmetry between past and future on the quantum level. “There is a tension there, and it’s something quite puzzling if you think about it,” said Steve Giddings, a quantum gravity theorist at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Concern over this conflict has been in the air for years. But recently, two quantum gravity theorists may have found a way to loosen unitarity’s buckles to better fit our growing cosmos. Andrew Strominger and Jordan Cotler of Harvard University argue that a more relaxed principle called isometry can accommodate an expanding universe while still satisfying the stringent requirements that first made unitary a guiding light.

Physicists Rewrite a Quantum Rule That Clashes With Our Universe

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Re: Science news of the day thread.

Post by rasetsu » Tue Oct 04, 2022 9:54 pm

Purdue University chemists have discovered a mechanism for peptide-forming reactions to occur in water — something that has baffled scientists for decades.

“This is essentially the chemistry behind the origin of life,” said Graham Cooks. He is the Henry Bohn Hass Distinguished Professor of Analytical Chemistry in Purdue’s College of Science. “This is the first demonstration that primordial molecules, simple amino acids, spontaneously form peptides, the building blocks of life, in droplets of pure water. This is a dramatic discovery.”

This water-based chemistry, which leads to proteins and ultimately to life on Earth, could also lead to the faster development of medicines to treat humanity’s most debilitating diseases. The team’s discovery was published today (October 3, 2022) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Scientists have theorized for decades that life on Earth began in the oceans. However, the chemistry behind this remained an enigma. Raw amino acids — something that meteorites delivered to early Earth daily — can react and latch together to form peptides. These are the building blocks of proteins and, eventually, life. Strangely, the process requires the loss of a water molecule, which seems exceedingly improbable in a wet, aqueous, or oceanic environment. For life to form, it required water. However, it also needed space away from the water.

Cooks, an expert in mass spectrometry and early Earth chemistry, and his research team have uncovered the answer to the riddle: “Water isn’t wet everywhere.” On the margins, where the water droplet meets the atmosphere, extremely quick reactions can take place, transforming abiotic amino acids into the building blocks of life. Therefore, fertile landscapes for life’s potential evolution were in places where sea spray flies into the air and waves pound the land, or where fresh water burbles down a slope.

The chemists have been using mass spectrometers to examine chemical reactions in droplets containing water for more than 10 years.

“The rates of reactions in droplets are anywhere from a hundred to a million times faster than the same chemicals reacting in bulk solution,” Cooks said.

The swift rates of these reactions make catalysts unnecessary, speeding up the reactions and, in the case of early Earth chemistry, making the evolution of life possible. Decades of scientific investigation have been focused on figuring out how this mechanism works. The secret of how life emerged on Earth can help scientists better understand why it happened and guide their search for life on other planets, or even moons.

(Sci Tech Daily)

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Re: Science news of the day thread.

Post by Brian Peacock » Tue Oct 04, 2022 11:00 pm

Wow! :tup:
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Clinton Huxley » 21 Jun 2012 » 14:10:36 GMT
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Re: Science news of the day thread.

Post by Woodbutcher » Tue Oct 04, 2022 11:21 pm

And eventually there will be intelligent life.
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Re: Science news of the day thread.

Post by Brian Peacock » Wed Oct 05, 2022 7:04 am

Come again?
Study links in-utero ‘forever chemical’ exposure to low sperm count and mobility

A new peer-reviewed Danish study finds that a mother’s exposure to toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” during early pregnancy can lead to lower sperm count and quality later in her child’s life.

PFAS – per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances – are known to disrupt hormones and fetal development, and future “reproductive capacity” is largely defined as testicles develop in utero during the first trimester of a pregnancy, said study co-author Sandra Søgaard Tøttenborg of the Copenhagen University Hospital.

“It makes sense that exposure to substances that mimic and interfere with the hormones involved in this delicate process can have consequences for semen quality later in life,” Søgaard Tøttenborg said.

PFAS are a class of about 12,000 chemicals typically used to make thousands of products resistant to water, stains and heat. They are called “forever chemicals” because they accumulate in humans and the environment and do not naturally break down. A growing body of evidence links them to serious health problems such as cancer, birth defects, liver disease, kidney disease and decreased immunity.

The study, published Wednesday in Environmental Health Perspectives, examined semen characteristics and reproductive hormones in 864 young Danish men born to women who provided blood samples during their pregnancies’ first trimesters between 1996 and 2002.

The study builds on others that found similar issues, but it is the first to look for exposure to more than two PFAS compounds and to assess exposure during early pregnancy, which is the male reproductive organ’s “primary developmental period”. Researchers checked the mothers’ blood for 15 PFAS compounds, and found seven in large enough concentrations to include in the study.

Those mothers with higher levels of exposure more frequently raised adult men with lower sperm counts, as well as elevated immotile sperm levels, meaning their sperm did not swim. This exposure also increased the amount of non-progressive sperm – sperm that do not swim straight or swim in circles. Both issues can lead to infertility...

https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 ... evelopment
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Clinton Huxley » 21 Jun 2012 » 14:10:36 GMT
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Re: Science news of the day thread.

Post by rainbow » Wed Oct 05, 2022 8:33 am

rasetsu wrote:
Tue Oct 04, 2022 9:54 pm
Purdue University chemists have discovered a mechanism for peptide-forming reactions to occur in water — something that has baffled scientists for decades.

“This is essentially the chemistry behind the origin of life,” said Graham Cooks. He is the Henry Bohn Hass Distinguished Professor of Analytical Chemistry in Purdue’s College of Science. “This is the first demonstration that primordial molecules, simple amino acids, spontaneously form peptides, the building blocks of life, in droplets of pure water. This is a dramatic discovery.”

This water-based chemistry, which leads to proteins and ultimately to life on Earth, could also lead to the faster development of medicines to treat humanity’s most debilitating diseases. The team’s discovery was published today (October 3, 2022) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Scientists have theorized for decades that life on Earth began in the oceans. However, the chemistry behind this remained an enigma. Raw amino acids — something that meteorites delivered to early Earth daily — can react and latch together to form peptides. These are the building blocks of proteins and, eventually, life. Strangely, the process requires the loss of a water molecule, which seems exceedingly improbable in a wet, aqueous, or oceanic environment. For life to form, it required water. However, it also needed space away from the water.

Cooks, an expert in mass spectrometry and early Earth chemistry, and his research team have uncovered the answer to the riddle: “Water isn’t wet everywhere.” On the margins, where the water droplet meets the atmosphere, extremely quick reactions can take place, transforming abiotic amino acids into the building blocks of life. Therefore, fertile landscapes for life’s potential evolution were in places where sea spray flies into the air and waves pound the land, or where fresh water burbles down a slope.

The chemists have been using mass spectrometers to examine chemical reactions in droplets containing water for more than 10 years.

“The rates of reactions in droplets are anywhere from a hundred to a million times faster than the same chemicals reacting in bulk solution,” Cooks said.

The swift rates of these reactions make catalysts unnecessary, speeding up the reactions and, in the case of early Earth chemistry, making the evolution of life possible. Decades of scientific investigation have been focused on figuring out how this mechanism works. The secret of how life emerged on Earth can help scientists better understand why it happened and guide their search for life on other planets, or even moons.

(Sci Tech Daily)
Drivel. "building blocks of life" indeed

...much hand-waving, but little actual science.

To get life you need a template, either RNA or DNA, or a similar chiral frame - otherwise no evolution is possible.

Dumbnuts.
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Re: Science news of the day thread.

Post by pErvinalia » Wed Oct 05, 2022 8:39 am

And you need Jesus.
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Re: Science news of the day thread.

Post by rainbow » Wed Oct 05, 2022 1:49 pm

pErvinalia wrote:
Wed Oct 05, 2022 8:39 am
And you need Jesus.
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Re: Science news of the day thread.

Post by macdoc » Thu Oct 06, 2022 12:42 am

Magic powder :flowers:

snip
he product—3M nanostructured-supported iridium catalyst powder—was unveiled last month at Climate Week NYC. The powder is used when separating hydrogen molecules from water with renewable electricity, a process known as electrolysis.

Every 10 grams of the stuff can help make 10 tons of hydrogen and prevents 100 tons of carbon emissions, said 3M senior research scientist Andy Steinbach. It also reduces the amount of iridium—a rare and expensive metal that trades for $4,000 an ounce—needed for the electrolysis process.
https://techxplore.com/news/2022-10-3m- ... ction.html
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Re: Science news of the day thread.

Post by Brian Peacock » Fri Oct 07, 2022 2:31 am

I wonder what the carbon footprint of the powder is?
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Clinton Huxley » 21 Jun 2012 » 14:10:36 GMT
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Re: Science news of the day thread.

Post by macdoc » Fri Oct 07, 2022 3:26 am

why ever would you care
Every 10 grams of the stuff can help make 10 tons of hydrogen and prevents 100 tons of carbon emissions,
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Re: Science news of the day thread.

Post by rainbow » Fri Oct 07, 2022 4:31 am

Brian Peacock wrote:
Fri Oct 07, 2022 2:31 am
I wonder what the carbon footprint of the powder is?
Big time. Refining PGMs is energy intensive.

However they can be recycled
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Re: Science news of the day thread.

Post by macdoc » Fri Oct 07, 2022 6:16 am

Big time. Refining PGMs is energy intensive
Being energy intensive does not equal carbon footprint .....depends entirely on the energy source.
Refining them in Ontario Canada for instance would involve little or no carbon footprint. :prof:
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Re: Science news of the day thread.

Post by macdoc » Sun Oct 09, 2022 10:53 am

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Re: Science news of the day thread.

Post by rasetsu » Sun Oct 09, 2022 1:05 pm

Cool.

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