The Ye Science Thread

[quadz]

Intriguing.

This was baffling to me: "The team’s top priority is now to work out what those 149 unknown genes do." [...]  “It’s doubtful that any federal funding organization would give us a grant to study genes of unknown function. It’s not enough to discover that they’re essential for life. It would be considered a fishing expedition.”

Are you kidding me?  When we're down to a number like 149?  Why would acquiring this knowledge not be seen as important?




Reading the article reminded me of this animation of the "Inner Life of a Cell"

<span data-s9e-mediaembed="youtube" style="display:inline-block;width:100%;max-width:640px"><span style="display:block;overflow:hidden;position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%"><iframe allowfullscreen="" scrolling="no" style="background:url(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/B_zD3NxSsD8/hqdefault.jpg) 50% 50% / cover;border:0;height:100%;left:0;position:absolute;width:100%" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/B_zD3NxSsD8"></iframe></span></span><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/B_zD3NxSsD8" target="_blank" class="new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/B_zD3NxSsD8</a>

I particularly was fascinated by the &quot;Motor Protein&quot; sequence
"Motor Protein" sequence at about 3:40

[yahoo]

Starshot: Russian billionaire and Stephen Hawking want to use lasers to send tiny spacecraft to nearby star

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-starshot-breakthrough-yuri-milner-20160412-story.html

[quadz]

Interesting presentation of the data:

http://xkcd.com/1732/

[LedZep]

When you scroll all the way to the bottom of that pic, it's funny as hell... in a dark way.

Also, the picture is missing Galileo Galileus! Tres important!

[|iR|Focalor]

Seems to be missing some relavent facts. Has the freezing point of water changed at some point since... whenever? No. Then how the hell was New York only 4 or 5 degrees colder than it is right now yet covered in 2000 feet of ice? (Its avg worldwide temps duh but the graph doesnt really specify that when talking about NY) Furthermore, no one actually measured air temps back then. You can GUESS based on lots of things, but some of the same things those guesses are based on are also guesses themselves. Not saying global warming is bullshit. I've got a license to work with commercial CFC refrigerants, and the reason they make you get certified is so that Joe Dumbshit won't carelessly empty 20 tanks of refrigerant into the air and pollute shit and kill the ozone layer. It's real. But talking about what temps were 5000 yrs ago seems irrelavent when theres plenty of PROVEN data just from the last 100 years. Anyone claiming temps have "changed before" don't need a ridiculous mile long graph to show them anything, they just need a hard slap in the face for being a fucking dumbshit. Just my opinion.

[quadz]

Has the freezing point of water changed at some point since... whenever? No. Then how the hell was New York only 4 or 5 degrees colder than it is right now yet covered in 2000 feet of ice? (Its avg worldwide temps duh but the graph doesnt really specify that when talking about NY)

That's the counterintuitive part that is amazing to me. Local New York temps can probably be inferred as "cold" if it's covered in ice. But it's amazing that small changes in global average temps imply extreme changes in localized regions.

Because a few degrees change in global average doesn't sound menacing as an isolated statistic. (Oh, it's a couple degrees hotter? I might not even bother turning on the AC.)

But apparently that's not how climate works at all. If the temperature increase were truly globally uniform there'd probably be no issue. But rather, when a few degrees colder global average seems to imply currently-inhabited regions would be covered in ice, it seems the prospect of the global average getting a few degrees hotter than it's ever been in the history of our species should also warrant special concern. (Whether or not there's much we can realistically do about it at this point.)

Furthermore, no one actually measured air temps back then. You can GUESS based on lots of things, but some of the same things those guesses are based on are also guesses themselves.

There are apparently two techniques used for the 20k date range shown in the graph: tree rings, covering a couple thousand years; and ice cores covering 100k years. Presumably these techniques are each calibrated based on the past century over which we do have measured temperature readings to check them against.

[|iR|Focalor]

Well that's where the graph is pretty useless and seems more like small supplemental data for another nonexistent series of graphs or maps. If it's gonna be cold enough from the NE US states northwards to sustain thick layers of ice, then it would still need to be much warmer than usual in locales on the equator to make the number representing worldwide avg temp fit that theory. Some places would probably remain the same, but others would need to be hotter than usual to make those figures work out. There's also no mention of elevated O2 levels which they theorize is why dinosaurs were so large, but could have also effected weather patterns.

The "point" of the graph just seems... pointLESS. It would be more effective to simply show people a large clear air tight cube filled with a relevant volume of O3, and then pump in some CFC's and SEE what happens to the O3. And then show them what the sky looks like in Hong Kong on a clear cloudless summer day. Clear and cloudless really doesn't exist there anymore because... well just google a pic of Hong Kong and see it. No graph needed.

[quadz]

"Sam Harris: Can we build AI without losing control over it?"



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67uehZrVfl8
<span data-s9e-mediaembed="youtube" style="display:inline-block;width:100%;max-width:640px"><span style="display:block;overflow:hidden;position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%"><iframe allowfullscreen="" scrolling="no" style="background:url(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/67uehZrVfl8/hqdefault.jpg) 50% 50% / cover;border:0;height:100%;left:0;position:absolute;width:100%" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/67uehZrVfl8"></iframe></span></span><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/67uehZrVfl8" target="_blank" class="new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/67uehZrVfl8</a>

[QwazyWabbit]

<s>The four laws will save us!</s>

If humanity can go berserk over the fear of an advancement of an AI by one industrial power over another then ultimately nothing can save us. No AI non-proliferation treaty could prevent the secret development of an AI, how would you even monitor for it?

See also: "Colossus, the Forbin Project", a TV movie about the development of an nuclear offense/defense systemic AI by the US that upon activation, announced that it has discovered another system in the USSR and when they were connected became sentient and decided to enslave humanity under the threat of nuclear annihilation. For our own good, of course.

Does the Frankenstein monster exist? Only in the mind of man.

Gene Roddenberry imagined humanity progressing to the point of not needing money or acquisition of wealth nor the existence of poverty but a world where "everyone is free to develop himself to his or her fullest potential". Perhaps an AI would be tasked with obtaining this goal. Perhaps that same AI might decide that the safety of the universe required the extinction of the polluting, dirty, filthy primate called man.

Then again, if Life is the Universe's way to understand itself then it is right that humanity would develop the AI that completes that task.

Forty-two.

[Sgt. Dick]

Rocket launch will prove Earth is flat, California man says
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2017/11/23/rocket-launch-will-prove-earth-is-flat-california-man-says.html

[|iR|Focalor]

[yahoo]

Stephen Hawking is died

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/mar/14/stephen-hawking-professor-dies-aged-76

[|iR|Focalor]

Jesus triumphs! He's burning in hell right now! Hooray for Christianity!

[quadz]

https://twitter.com/Mr_Meinata/status/1185530544102100993

[|iR|Focalor]

  I wonder if he's ever thought of dressing up as Cleveland from Family Guy for Halloween.