Something cool thread

[The Evil Genius]

 

[Captain Wiggles]

WW2 not 1 tho as Marceau wasn't born until 1923. 🤓

[The Evil Genius]

Yeah I skipped right over that typo. 

[Larry]

 

 

[China]

‘Extraordinary’ structure has no real parallel in the archaeological record, scientists say

 

Archaeologists have unearthed the oldest known wooden structure, and it’s almost half a million years old.

 

The simple structure — found along a riverbank in Zambia — is made up of two interlocking logs, with a notch deliberately crafted into the upper piece to allow them to fit together at right angles, according to a new study of cut marks made by stone tools.

 

 

Geoff Duller, a professor of geography and Earth sciences at the University of Aberystwyth in the United Kingdom, was part of the team that made the discovery in 2019. He said the structure, excavated upstream of Kalambo Falls near Zambia’s border with Tanzania, probably would have been part of a wooden platform used as a walkway, to keep food or firewood dry or perhaps as a base on which to build a dwelling. A digging stick and other wooden tools were found at the same site.

 

“That the wood has remained in place and intact for half a million years is extraordinary. And it gives us this real insight, this window into this time period,” said Duller, coauthor of the study on the wooden structure that published in the journal Nature on Wednesday.

 

“It’s completely changed my view of what people were capable of that time,” he added.

 

Wood artifacts are rarely preserved in the archaeological record, particularly at such an ancient site, because organic material easily rots and disintegrates. At Kalambo, Duller said high water levels and fine sediment encasing the structure helped to preserve the wood.

 

The discovery challenges the prevailing view that Stone Age humans led a nomadic lifestyle, Duller said. Kalambo Falls would have provided a reliable source of water and the surrounding forest ample food, perhaps allowing for a more settled existence.

 

“At the very least, they’re putting a huge amount of effort into this place,” he said.

 

The wooden structure has no real parallel in the archaeological record, according to the study.

 

Researchers aren’t certain which species of ancient human made the structure and wooden tools, but it is highly unlikely to have been our own. The earliest known Homo sapiens fossils date from around 300,000 years ago and were found in what’s now Israel, Duller said.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Jumbo]

https://phys.org/news/2023-10-thousands-programmable-dna-cutters-algae-snails.html

 

[BleedBNG]

 

[China]

Black 4.0 is the blackest paint you can buy

 

Stuart Semple's Black 4.0 is very nearly as black as Vantablack—and unlike that fabulously expensive coating, developed for the UK's defense ministry and possibly carcinogenic, you can buy a bottle of Black 4.0 for fifty bucks.

 

 

Vantablack has a light absorbance value of 99.965%, with Black 4.0 close behind at 99.95%. Earlier models of Black x.0 were only 99.6%.

 

I covered a laptop (below) in Black 2.0: it was exceptionally dark (and as you can see easily defeats a cellphone camera) but in person still had a faint velvet reflectance that was made worse over time by fingerprints. Even so, I liked the way it made other people in coffee shops look at it with a vague sense of unease. I'm hoping that my Black 4.0 laptop will be genuinely discomfiting for humans to behold.

 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

On 2/20/2023 at 12:58 AM, Renegade7 said:

Be happy Orcas "tolerate" us...

 

 

 

They don't always:

 

Orcas Pummel Boat After Crew Tries To Deter Them With Heavy Metal Music

 

Heavy metal didn’t stop these orcas from rocking the boat.

 

In the wake of orcas seeming to attack boats around Portugal and Spain, sailors are turning to unorthodox tactics in an attempt to deter them.

 

One piece of advice going around is to blast heavy metal music underwater to keep orcas away. But a marine mammal researcher warns this is a bad idea ― and one crew seems to have learned this the hard way.

 

Florian Rutsch, who was captaining a catamaran crossing the Strait of Gibraltar, told The New York Times that his crew tried to use a special “Metal for Orcas” playlist (here it is if you’re curious) they hoped would keep the large predators away. But that method didn’t work at all. The orcas went for the vessel’s rudder, making it impossible to steer. All crew members were ultimately rescued, and Spanish authorities towed the catamaran back to shore, according to the Times.

 

Using loud music as an attempted deterrent may backfire and harm orcas along with other ocean life, Andrew Trites, the marine mammal research unit director at the University of British Columbia, told Business Insider.

 

“Initially, the playing of loud sounds underwater might mask the signature sounds of sailboats — but ultimately, the whales would catch on and use it to more easily locate vessels playing it,” Trites said.

 

Music loud enough to simply make orcas turn around would be so loud that it would cause pain and likely damage their hearing ― not to mention cause issues for their fellow sea creatures.

 

“The biggest problem with blasting music underwater of any kind is that it is ultimately just adding more noise pollution to the ocean, which can have detrimental effects on other marine life,” Trites said.

 

“Continuous” orca attacks on boats in the region have been reported since 2020, with dozens of incidents and at least three boats totally sinking. There have been no reports of any people being killed in the attacks.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Renegade7]

No reports of deaths because they leave no witnesses???

[Califan007 The Constipated]

 

 

[China]

That was cool but there are a few others I would have liked to have seen added.  They did the original Enterprise, but not the larger Enterprise D or any of the Klingon or Romulan ships.  There was only one ship from Battlestar Galactica.  Also, no Heart of Gold from Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy, ship from Galaxy Quest or from The Orville. 

 

I'm OK with them missing some older stuff from '70s TV shows like Space 1999, Buck Rogers, or Quark because there probably aren't many people these days that would recognize them.

[CousinsCowgirl84]

56 minutes ago, China said:

That was cool but there are a few others I would have liked to have seen added.  They did the original Enterprise, but not the larger Enterprise D or any of the Klingon or Romulan ships.  There was only one ship from Battlestar Galactica.  Also, no Heart of Gold from Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy, ship from Galaxy Quest or from The Orville. 

 

I'm OK with them missing some older stuff from '70s TV shows like Space 1999, Buck Rogers, or Quark because there probably aren't many people these days that would recognize them.

It does say at the end click here for more ships…. I don’t think the video did a good job of showing the size of the largest ships. There was barely any shade thrown….

[Koolblue13]

 

[Califan007 The Constipated]

19 hours ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

 I don’t think the video did a good job of showing the size of the largest ships. There was barely any shade thrown….

I think you’re throwing enough shade in your post...

 

 

[China]

On 7/10/2023 at 6:28 PM, China said:

The northern lights are coming to several states this week. Here's how to see them

 

The northern lights are expected to be visible across several U.S. states this week, according to the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

 

On Wednesday and Thursday, the Kp-index, or planetary index, will be at five and six, respectively. The scale goes all the way up to nine, and any occurrence above five is considered a geomagnetic storm.

 

The aurora borealis could be seen across parts of Washington, Idaho, Vermont, Wyoming, New Hampshire, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, Massachusetts, Maryland, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, Maine, according to the university.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

It's happening again:

 

Aurora could reach unusually far south tonight as strong solar storm hits

 

Multiple explosions on the sun this week have unleashed four bursts of plasma from the sun’s corona toward Earth. Known as coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, these blasts are expected to consolidate into a supersize CME capable of triggering a strong geomagnetic storm and aurora visible in the northern United States and Europe on Thursday night into early Friday.

 

Solar storms can generate geomagnetic activity that disrupts radio communications and GPS navigation services, although this storm may be strong enough to produce only an aurora borealis, or northern lights.

 

How far south the aurora will be visible is uncertain, and cloud cover may obscure the view in some regions, but it’s possible the lights could be seen with the naked eye across parts of the northern Plains, Midwest and Northeast. There’s an outside chance they’ll be faintly visible into the Mid-Atlantic, southern Plains and parts of California, far away from light pollution.

 

“The largest solar storms have the potential to disrupt our technological infrastructure, but this week’s incoming storm is not one of them,” Ryan French, a solar physicist at the National Solar Observatory, said in an email. 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[EmirOfShmo]

Elliot In the Morning was talking about this the other day so I had to see what they looked like. I give you: The Chinstrap Penguin.

 

The penguins nodded off more than 10,000 times a day, for only around 4 seconds at a time, but still managed to accumulate close to 11 hours of sleep. Their breeding success suggests that this strategy allows them to get the sleep they need. 

 

 

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adh0771

[Spearfeather]

Anyone ever seen a white crow before?

Just took this about 20 minutes ago.

Gotta zoom in. Very center.

 

 

[China]

Possibly an albino.

[Califan007 The Constipated]

 

 

 

 

[Destino]

David Foster and Katharine Mcphee’s 2 year old.

 

 

[China]

Huge ancient city found in the Amazon

 

A huge ancient city has been found in the Amazon, hidden for thousands of years by lush vegetation.

 

The discovery changes what we know about the history of people living in the Amazon.

The houses and plazas in the Upano area in eastern Ecuador were connected by an astounding network of roads and canals.

The area lies in the shadow of a volcano that created rich local soils but also may have led to the destruction of the society.

While we knew about cities in the highlands of South America, like Machu Picchu in Peru, it was believed that people only lived nomadically or in tiny settlements in the Amazon.

"This is older than any other site we know in the Amazon. We have a Eurocentric view of civilisation, but this shows we have to change our idea about what is culture and civilisation," says Prof Stephen Rostain, director of investigation at the National Centre for Scientific Research in France, who led the research.

"It changes the way we see Amazonian cultures. Most people picture small groups, probably naked, living in huts and clearing land - this shows ancient people lived in complicated urban societies," says co-author Antoine Dorison.

The city was built around 2,500 years ago, and people lived there for up to 1,000 years, according to archaeologists.

It is difficult to accurately estimate how many people lived there at any one time, but scientists say it is certainly in the 10,000s if not 100,000s.

 

The archaeologists combined ground excavations with a survey of a 300 sq km (116 sq mile) area using laser sensors flown on a plane that could identify remains of the city beneath the dense plants and trees.

 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Larry]

An excuse for Indiana Jones 5?  

[China]

8 minutes ago, Larry said:

An excuse for Indiana Jones 56?  

 

Psst...there are already 5 Indiana Jones movies.

[CousinsCowgirl84]

On 1/7/2024 at 1:20 AM, Califan007 The Constipated said:

 

 

 

 

Thanks for… this?