https://www.yahoo.com/news/scientists-bacteria-forge-silicon-carbon-060727595.html
And so it begins.
So the biology of Cybertronians and the ELS from Gundam 00 have basis in fact. Cool.
Some sea creatures have blue blood because they are copper based instead of iron based (like us)
Horseshoe crabs and some snails have that, IIRC. Itâs because theyâve got hemocyanin instead of hemoglobin, or whatever. Itâs fascinating.
Hey science thread, havenât posted here in a while. I spend a lot of my free time browsing Stack Exchange, and I occasionally run into very interesting science questions (mostly in the Physics, Astronomy, and Worldbuilding Stack Exchanges!)
This answer is one of the recent good ones. It was the answer to âIs the universe considered flat?â I had taken for granted that we generally believe the Universe is flat, so when I read the answer and it went into how we figured it out, it was pretty eye-opening.
The key is the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. The CMB is eerily homogenous. If we look far enough into the night sky, weâll eventually see light from sources ~13 billion light years away (at the time they gave off the light). If we look in opposite directions, we should be able to look at regions of the Universe that are ~13B light years away from us, and so are ~26B light years away from each other. Our Universe is only ~13B years old, so the two regions in opposite directions have not had enough time to see or interact with each other.
This is what makes the CMB so mind-blowing: these are regions of space that are quite literally outside each otherâs observable universes, and yet they glow with radiation so uniform (which means they have almost exactly the same temperature), as if they were right next to each other.
There are very slight variations in the CMB, though. Theyâre very, very slight (we pushed the state of the art of scientific measurement just to be able to detect them), but theyâre there. Whatâs more, tracking the variations over angular distances gives you information on the curvature-to-energy-density relationship of that part of the Universe. If you do that for a very wide angular distance (look all around you) for a good amount of time, youâd have data regarding the curvature of the Universe. The 2 satellites that have done this extensively (WMAP and Planck) both report that the Universe is almost definitely flat.
It was a pretty controversial result, too. Taking from a mix of general relativity and thermodynamics, we know that the âflatnessâ of the Universe varies exponentially with the square of the initial energy density of the Universe. This exponential-to-the-square relationship is very non-linear, so even a very slight change in the initial condition would mean an incredibly different result after the entire ~13B-year age of the Universe.
So itâs very serendipitous, almost too good to be true, that the initial condition worked out perfectly so as to make the Universe flat; it requires a very high degree of precision to get the initial condition exactly right, otherwise the âdegree of flatnessâ of the Universe would be way out of bounds.
People then started to ask, âwhy is the Universe, against almost impossible odds, flat?â One of the leading theories right now has to do with cosmic inflation, and the way it explains it is pretty cool:
You see, the precise initial condition to make the Universe flat is that the âdegree of flatnessâ - 1 be very small (this âdegree of flatnessâ is a ratio written as big Omega, ratio of energy density to a computed critical density). But from the same mix of general relativity and thermodynamics I referred to earlier, we know that the product of this âdegree of flatnessâ - 1 and the current energy density (multiplied by a scale factor that varies with the size of the Universe) be equal to a certain constant.
Imagine there were a field whose energy stayed constant even as you stretch space (itâd resemble an energy that exists merely by virtue of having space, which we usually refer to as dark energy). Even if you expanded space very rapidly, the energy density of this field would still be the same. Thus, the energy density multiplied by the scale factor of the size of the Universe would increase very rapidly, as well.
And since the product of the âdegree of flatnessâ - 1 and this product is constant, if the product increases very rapidly, the âdegree of flatnessâ - 1 must tend to 0 very rapidly, as well. Hence, our initial condition for flatness.
If you want to read more, just look up the flatness problem and cosmic inflation. You can find more rigorous explanations online, I boiled it down to my best understanding of the idea. Itâs all so clever and interesting!
all flat earthers should be required to take a class in differential geometry
He said flat Universe not Flat Earth
Just like we always say Marvel vs Capcom, not Mortal Kombat vs SF you want to hear. Geez Jion lrn2read.
Maybe if your UNIVERSE only resides in the Earth⌠ignoring the whole Universe is ever expanding thing. But then, those people donât even care about more carbon is in our atmosphere than has ever been recorded and it is fucking up the oceans/extreme weather already. But that goes into like a discussion on âplastic is maybe the best and worst thing manâs ever createdâ for us 1st world corporation cash fuckups.
Hydrogen may have learned the ways of metal.
Time Crystals
INB4 Trump closes this thread
March for Science
https://www.reddit.com/r/MarchForScience/
Date not yet set, but looking to be selected very soon.
"Look forward to an official event date and mission statement to be released Monday, 30 January! "
The implications of this is quite mindboggling if this is 100% verified:
Sounds like a Magic card. Time CrystalâŚ
Seven earth-size planets around one star, three of them in the habitable zone.
How long before we start claiming them for our own?
Fuck yeah. Just started to watch the conference and man, this is cool stuff.