Newest Science Blogs (319)

There was a lot of chatter about the solstice and the 'Great Conjunction' of the near alignment of Jupiter and Saturn happened this evening.

Oh, you missed it? I read it will happen again in 800 years!

While it's considered a phenomenon, I'm a bit disappointed and I was expecting it to have more brilliance.

South Florida had 63F degrees and not a cloud in the sky.

My best view was standing in the open section of a golf course, where it was visible in the southwest less than 20 degrees above the horizon.

"That's it!"
"No, it can't be."
"It's gotta be it... nothing else in sky."



She said "Enough, let's go home!"
"Yeah... Okay."



A few news stories called it the Christmas Star and compared it to the biblical Three Wise Men guided by a star.
Let's talk facts:
It's 2 planets (not a star) and lasts less than an hour. Those guys had traveled a while.

Project SETI, after 60 years of listening, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) organization acknowledged that in April and May 2019 radio signals were received by the Parkes Observatory radio telescope run by CSIRO in South Wales, Australia. As usual when listening on many frequencies a vast variety of radio signals are received during any observational period. Normally several months of work are required to isolate and analyze each separate signal to determine it's origin. The current endeavor is called Project Breakthrough Listen which collects and analyses signals from many participating radio observatories around the planet. In the case of this particular signal (known as BLC-1) the analysis of the signal did not occur until October 2019.
The radio signal is a not modulated (non-informational) tone that was broadcast on a frequency of 982 Megahertz. The tone was broadcast for about a half hour. Data from other radio observatories and listening stations was then collected and the presence of the signal in their recordings also was confirmed.
Triangulation reveals the point of origin appears to be in the direction of Proximi Centauri, a nearby star 4.3 light years away Doppler radio analysis indicates the signal was blue shifting (i.e., moving). No known natural process can produce a unwavering radio signal of the nature received. .Because the same data was found on multiple radio listening points, some thousands of miles apart a local man made source near the Parkes Observatory was soon ruled out. Subsequent investigation has determined no satellite launched by Earth has ever been set up to transmit on a frequency of 892MhZ. Further, no known satellites launched from Earth are known to be in the position of the sky the signal was determined to be originating from.
Continued monitoring of the frequency has not resulted in any further signal being received.
Scientists are continuing to monitor that area of the sky and are also preparing papers speculating about what may have caused the signal and what it may mean.

Verification:
National Geographic


Scientific American


Private Analysis: So while CNN, NBC, RT and FOX worry about President Trump, President Elect Biden, and Covid19 masks, over 4 years ago, someone or something pressed a car horn for a half hour. I say car horn because that is fairly similar to what was done. When a human leans on a car horn for awhile, we are usually doing so in an attempt to signal something to someone. Three questions fill my mind. Was the signal meant for us? If not, then what did the signal signify and to who (or what)? What kind of response to the signal is to be anticipated?

Tik-Tok whatever the response will be, depending on how far away that listening point manned by the sending species is, it is possible the response is already underway.

......Real science...VERY real. I know, I know, just how tedious I can be when I put on my real Teacher/Scientist fat Runt hat, VERY real, so I'll try to be brief.
Let's say you are doing biology with animals, plants or microbes. When you try to get funding, or to publish findings, the first levels of scrutiny involve spot on valid identification of your study/experimental, VERY MENTAL, models.
Recently, some of our family reflected on this with Dad, describing how much effort is put into exact characterization of mouse stem cell lines, by these hard working Interns at an international standards genetics research outfit. Selective breeding, DNA\RNA verification of cell cultures, yep---the whole nine yards.
So it is in studying various aspects of human health and illness. Enter the topic of valid case identification. Of course, for myriad reasons in free living human populations, the exact laboratory measures mentioned above can only be approximated, which of course dilutes things when it comes to sadistical analyses. It ain't a perfect world, peebles
So we hear about about how politics, once again, can slither into science. Worse, when big bucks are involved.
Apparently, on the data charts when patients are admitted to Horsepital, there's usually a little field for checking off, labelled as "Covid-19 Case?". If someone is admitted for any cause, and proper care involves being placed on a respirator, along with other information, checking off this field on a clinical hunch, involves more reimbursement for the Hospital from government, and even private insurance. Increase in billing can range from $11,000 to $39,000. Many people WITHOUT C-19 are placed on respirators.
Remember this every time that we hear of reported numbers of Cases/Death of C-19.

No, this blog is not about the last time you got any.
The bodies , that are the subject of this blog, are celestial.
To be exact, Jupiter and Saturn, the great gas bodies in our solar system.
And you think the great gas body was your ex.

Anyway, something is about to happen, that hasn't happened this much in 800 years and you can witness it this month.

Every 2 decades or so, Jupiter and Saturn appear to get quite close in the sky. They actually aren't close. They are 8 times less close to each other as we are to the sun. However, their orbits around our sun align them from our perspective to make them appear close,
as we see them in our night sky. This year they will seem so close, that they will overlap each other. The last time that happened was back in the year of 1226. Perhaps some of you remember it ?
When it happens, it will appear brighter than any star in the sky.

The night you can see it is on December 21st. Better mark it on your calendar. You forgot the last one.

The Utah Department of Public Safety department helicopter was helping Utah Division of Wildlife Resource and spotted a tall metallic monolith in a remote area of the Utah desert.
Photos and videos of the object went viral and it was described to be something like the monolith from the science fiction movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, less the monkeys.

It's not known how it got there, who did it, how deep in the earth it's erected. It appears to have been man-made from stainless steel sheets that were riveted in the corners.

Today, in the news, it's reported the monolith is gone and only a flat plate that marked the location remains.

The Utah Monolith

...key word there "everyone."

The exact phrase I was thinking we would most likely hear when it comes to the vaccine being administered to front line workers. However, as far as I understand, front line workers will be required to take the vaccine. I have friends that are working in hospitals and such...and they tell me that they must take vaccines in order to be allowed to work.

So that phrase is misleading...making it sound like front line workers are lining up volunteering for it. It is more like, if you want to keep your job, you are going to take this vaccine.


I just heard those exact words from a guy being interviewed on Fox news.

An asteroid flew past us the other day.
It was the size of a pick-up truck and missed the earth by only 240 miles.
In solar system terms, that real close.
I've driven more than that (on Earth) in only 6 hours or so
and I guarantee, the asteroid was traveling a lot faster than 60 miles per hour.
I wonder how long before that one orbits back around.

Today From The Miami Herald;



From Wikipedia;



Here's an interesting video from NASA on close asteroids.
At the time of this video, one was on it's way to be near Earth, but not anywhere as close,
as the one that most recently passed.

.... When we see such a distribution of percentages, many find such to be intriguing. Does it represent striking new information, prompting the search for valid scientific ways to explore a new hypothesis, on some possible connection in life? Or is it merely the result of tree top confounding and other bias in gathering of data? Well---
This is the exit poll breakdown of US voters. the lower value is for Republicans voting for Mr. Trump, the higher, for dem Dems. In no other USA sociopolitical defined area is the difference anywhere near these extremes. VERY extreme.
For example, alt leftie Californicate, and Vermental -vermont, each hover around 30 to 60 %, respectively.

Who would be surprised that this finding is for Washington, DC?

The use of the descriptive term "SWAMP", indeed fits. The seat of over-administered, bureaucratic government corruption, height of inefficiencies, benefits in employment long gone for real workers in the dreaded private sector (pay, pensions, benefits), and rank nepotism, ---well, don't these folks have much to loose? From an rank upstart outsider, no less.

Mr. Trump is an existential threat to people of their ilk, and to their MSN pundits and wanker wonks. So the expressions of hate really are more signs of fear, than anything else.

Don't just take my words for it. See it everywhere.

This is the full movie of the play-by-play sequence to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Totally Under Control

Handel's quantum 1/f noise and quantum blinking.
You know the theory, how the reason everything inn the Universe flickers and creates wave function instability and electronic noise is because nothing is real anyway, so the illusion of reality is held together mostly by inertia. Well I wrote a math equation which seems to show that (yes, I may submit it for a peer review) and was gonna talk about it here too, but then I realized most here would have zero idea what I am writing about. So instead of doing that, I will resume watching a grade C horror flick on Torrent. "Ouija Craft" It is a great movie if you are having trouble sleeping or just like horrible movies. LoL It is about these high school witches who use a magical ouija board to bring back one of them after she mixes and drinks 2 magical potions that should never be mixed and just explodes. They use the board in a cemetery to resurrect her, but of course the spirit inhabiting the recreated corpse isn't as friendly as the person they used to know. Should we blame their inexperience, the Board, the cemetery or the script writer? I dunno. It was making me sleepy so I came here, but this place is as dead as that movie tonight.