In a recent #SETILive episode hosted by Beth Johnson, Dr. Ben Tutolo, an associate professor at the University of Calgary and a participating scientist on NASA's Curiosity Rover team, unveiled how an unassuming iron carbonate - siderite - is the key to unlocking #Mars's atmospheric secrets.
Learn more: https://www.seti.org/marss-ancient-carbon-cycle-how-rocks-mars-tell-story-vanishing-climate
You may think the future will exist in the intangible online world, but try using apps without a computer. We look at the crucial materials needed to build the physical world and consider the price of extracting them. It’s “Lithium Valley” on Big Picture Science.
Listen here: https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/lithium-valley
#PPOD: This Magellan full-resolution mosaic shows an area 160 kilometers by 250 kilometers in the Eistla region of Venus. The prominent circular features are volcanic domes, 65 kilometers in diameter, with broad, flat tops less than one kilometer in height. Sometimes called 'pancake' domes, they represent a unique category of volcanic extrusions on Venus formed from viscous (sticky) lava. Credit: NASA/JPL
Next #SETILive: Could Aliens See Us?
TODAY, Thursday, Jun 12, 2025 2:30 PM PDT / 5:30 PM PDT
Join senior planetary astronomer Dr. Franck Marchis for a fascinating conversation with Dr. Jacob Haqq-Misra, astrobiologist and lead author of a groundbreaking study exploring 10 possible futures for Earth’s technosphere—the global network of our technologies—and what these futures mean for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI).
WATCH LIVE: https://youtube.com/live/aOs7WU8Gd4c
#PPOD: Due to airglow, which is usually hard to see, the sky can glow like a giant rainbow. Disturbances like storms cause gravity waves, making airglow visible. The colors likely originate from various molecules: deep red from OH molecules at 87 km high, and orange and green from sodium and oxygen atoms higher up. This image was captured on Mount Pico in the Azores, Portugal, with Faial Island's lights in view. Credit: Miguel Claro | Dark Sky® Alqueva
In a serious gain in efficiency, a Space X Starship prototype has exploded without actually being launched.
They're next plan is to see if they can produce an explosion during the assembly process.
How water-based clocks revolutionised the way we measure time
For the vast majority of human history, we’ve relied on the Sun to tell time – a reliably unreliable method, given the body’s tendency to disappear behind clouds and the horizon.
https://aeon.co/videos/how-water-based-clocks-revolutionised-the-way-we-measure-time
Water clocks at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=water+clocks
People magazine reports on the celebrity match that I care about: macaroni penguins were found to be breeding with rockhopper penguins to make little rockaroni penguins
https://people.com/rare-hybrid-rockaroni-penguin-chicks-filmed-exclusive-11720784
Can a drug used to treat insomnia also ward off Alzheimer’s? @ScienceAlert tells us why it's worth looking into:
NASA's Parker Solar Probe made the closest-ever studies of the Sun -- and got this unprecedented look at multiple solar eruptions piling up on top of each other.
https://science.nasa.gov/science-research/heliophysics/nasas-parker-solar-probe-snaps-closest-ever-images-to-sun/ #space #science #nature #astronomy #nasa
Lithium was created in the Big Bang. Now, this light metal has become crucial for modern technology. The recent discovery of a massive amount of lithium in southern California could change everything. But at what cost? It’s “Lithium Valley” on Big Picture Science.
Listen: https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/lithium-valley
PRESS RELEASE: https://www.seti.org/news/skymapper-and-seti-institute-team-up-to-map-the-entire-sky-all-the-time/
Today, the SETI Institute announced a strategic collaboration with SkyMapper, the world’s leading decentralized global astronomy and space science network. Together, they plan to deliver continuous, real-time astronomical data to scientists, educators, and enthusiasts worldwide.
Remarkable advance in basic chemistry: Researchers have created hexanitrogen, composed of six bound nitrogen atoms. It's the most energetic molecule ever made!
If it can be made & stored in bulk (big if) it could be a powerful rocket fuel or energy storage material.
https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/most-energetic-molecule-ever-made-is-stable-in-liquid-nitrogen/4021662.article
#science #tech #chemistry
You don't see toys like this around anymore. The Atomic Energy Lab set was available from 1951 to 1952 and sold for a whopping $50.
"The set came with four types of uranium ore, a beta-alpha source, a pure beta source, a gamma source, a spinthariscope, a cloud chamber, an electroscope, a geiger counter, and a manual."
More here 🤯:
https://interestingengineering.com/culture/radioactive-toy-deemed-world-most-dangerous
A resident of northern #Arizona has died from Pneumonic Plague.
#Plague is rare to humans, w/ on avg ~7 cases reported annually in the #US, most of them in the western states, acc/to federal #health ofcls.
The death in #CoconinoCounty, which includes #Flagstaff, was the first recorded death from pneumonic plague since 2007, local ofcls said. Further details including the identify of the victim were not released.
#PublicHealth #Science #Medicine #HHS #RFKJr #Trump
https://apnews.com/article/pneumonic-plague-death-arizona-2c32ed6bd4a86be3d38828fe69aeb68b
Interstellar clouds are brewing rich organic chemistry. Astronomers just detected a complex molecule called cyanocoronene (C₂₄H₁₁CN) floating between the stars in Taurus.
We don't know if life is common in the universe. But prebiotic chemistry sure is.
https://public.nrao.edu/news/cosmic-chemistry-breakthrough-largest-aromatic-molecule-found-in-deep-space/ #science #space #technology
Humans have wanted to live longer for centuries. A drug discovered decades ago might show promise. Read more from @ScienceAlert:
From ATP to MRI: Mildred Cohn's Pioneering Work in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance
By Dale DeBakcsy
Exhumed and Exhaled
Charles Babbage breathes in the past.
https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/memory/exhumed-and-exhaled
Charles Babbage at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/556
The FDA allowed into the United States at least 150 drugs or their ingredients made at banned factories that were found to have mold, foul water, dirty labs or fraudulent testing protocols.
Key takeaways of our investigation:
https://www.propublica.org/article/fda-drug-safety-foreign-manufacturers-takeaways?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon-post
#News #FDA #Drugs #Safety #Health #Medicine #Pharma #Science #Lab
You'll be hearing a lot about the amazing new Vera Rubin Observatory today. Here's a peek at its most important feature: an unusual optical design that gives it a HUGE field of view, allowing it to scan the entire visible universe, over and over.
https://www.lsst.org/about/tel-site/optical_design #science #technology #astrodon
BREAKING NEWS
Orcas seen grooming each other with kelp, in a first for marine tool use
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/23/killer-whales-kelp-grooming-tool-use
Could a “great act of moral imagination” save our imperiled watersheds and their rivers? Writer Robert Macfarlane presents the case for why rivers are alive, on this week's Big Picture Science.
Listen here: https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/the-rights-of-rivers
My latest cartoon for @newscientist.com 🧪 #science
![An early 19th-century illustration[31] of Ctesibius's (285–222 BC) clepsydra from the 3rd century BC. The hour indicator ascends as water flows in. Also, a series of gears rotate a cylinder to correspond to the temporal hours.
The illustrator was probably w:John Farey, Jr. (1791–1851). The principal engraver for the encyclopedia was Wilson Lowry (1762–1824).[1] - Abraham Rees (1819) "Clepsydra" in Cyclopædia: or, a New Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences
Diagram of a fancy clepsydra, this type being an automaton or self-adjusting machine. Water enters and raises the figure, which points at the current hour for the day. Spillover water operates a series of gears that rotates a cylinder so that hour lengths are appropriate for today's date. The ancient Greeks and Romans had twelve hours from sunrise to sunset; since summer days are longer than winter days, summer hours were longer than winter hours.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_clock#/media/File:Clepsydra-Diagram-Fancy.jpeg](/proxy/post_attachment/768617/e4121f805e.jpg "An early 19th-century illustration[31] of Ctesibius's (285–222 BC) clepsydra from the 3rd century BC. The hour indicator ascends as water flows in. Also, a series of gears rotate a cylinder to correspond to the temporal hours.
The illustrator was probably w:John Farey, Jr. (1791–1851). The principal engraver for the encyclopedia was Wilson Lowry (1762–1824).[1] - Abraham Rees (1819) \"Clepsydra\" in Cyclopædia: or, a New Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences
Diagram of a fancy clepsydra, this type being an automaton or self-adjusting machine. Water enters and raises the figure, which points at the current hour for the day. Spillover water operates a series of gears that rotates a cylinder so that hour lengths are appropriate for today's date. The ancient Greeks and Romans had twelve hours from sunrise to sunset; since summer days are longer than winter days, summer hours were longer than winter hours.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_clock#/media/File:Clepsydra-Diagram-Fancy.jpeg")
