41

General Science / Can fire cast a shadow?

« on: 16/12/2019 13:40:24 »

Dearest Fireologists,

As a sheepy I of course know almost everything there is to know but one thing that eludes me is whether fire can have a shadow !

look , here's some fire being all firey !!


Fire Being All Firey Yesterday

As ewe can see, ewe can not see through it, so, if I was to shine a big enough torch at it would it make a shadow on the other side ? i'm curious because i can't see through it yet it's a source of light !!

whajafink ?

Can A Fire Have A Shadow ?

Hugs and shmishes

mwah mwah !!

Neil
"This girl is on fire !
OUCH Oooh OUCH !!"

42

General Science / Re: Science Photo of the Week

« on: 13/12/2019 14:24:45 »

Beautiful Bug found in South Africa

43

Physiology & Medicine / Re: Diet and Weight Loss | The best diet plan and natural ways of weight loss

« on: 11/05/2018 13:49:50 »

It would be convenient and help to freshen
If you simply asked a forum question
Are ewe here by chance to stealth ?
A sneaky spam about wealthy health ?

44

General Science / Re: Science Photo of the Week

« on: 25/04/2018 14:34:33 »

Storm in the Desert   


desert storm.jpg (201.34 kB . 2110x933 - viewed 39951 times)

Big Bend National Park, TX 3 June 2017 On a solo circum-country road trip camped on the desert floor I watched a nasty storm move left to right across the horizon. It was powerful and scary and magnificent! North of Chisos mtns, facing E
 
 8 second exp, f/2.8 ISO400 50mm Canon 5DMkII Increased the vib & sat to better reflect the colors the weird light was producing, clarity to bring out the depth in the clouds I was seeing. I didn't notice I'd also caught the stars until I got it on the laptop.

CREDIT: NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

45

Cells, Microbes & Viruses / Re: Where did the first virus come from?

« on: 25/04/2018 13:28:32 »

Somehow I missed this post the first time, so here I am, a decade later, answering the question! I hope @neilep you're not too frustrated by the wait. But look on the bright side, people have spent longer on hold on the phone trying to cancel their direct debit with Eon, HMRC or BT...

Viruses are obligate intracellular parasites. In plain English, they are infectious packets of genes that require a living cell to provide key functions that they lack so that they can replicate and increase their numbers.

Viruses come in many different shapes and sizes, both literally, and metaphorically. Some are absolutely tiny: particles of norovirus, which is one of the commonest causes of diarrhoea and vomiting, are just 30nm - 1/30,000th of a millimetre - across. Other viruses are enormous in comparison. The recently-discovered mamaviruses, pithoviruses and pandoraviruses are so large that there were initially mistaken for bacteria, which are usually orders of magnitude bigger than a virus.

This broad diversity, and the fact that viruses target every living entity on Earth including even other viruses (there are viruses that prey on viruses: these are called virophages), suggests that they have been around for a very long time and may even predate modern multicellular life itself.

One theory of the origin of viruses posits that they were initially a spin-off from the first cells. Genetic functions that had evolved to replicate themselves escaped the confines of their parent cell and became independent entities that nevertheless came home to roost in the cell to replicate but otherwise had little else in common.

Other hypotheses even regard some viruses as the origin of life on Earth.The giant viruses mentioned above (gyruses) contain such a broad repertoire of genes that cross all three of the main kingdoms of life, and also even include genes not seen in any living species, suggests that perhaps these entities gave rise to us all from the primordial soup.

The bottom line is that viruses contain an assemblage of genes that enable them to freeload off living cells, which they hijack by first fooling the cell into allowing them in, and then assimilating by using genetic tricks that can deactivate all but the most essential and useful cellular systems to enable the virus to grow rapidly, or they do the opposite and deactivate themselves so that they can lurk undetected within the genetic recesses of the cell, either by pretending to be a miniature chromosome that the cell ignores, or inserting themselves inside the host cell's own DNA. In both cases they end up immunologically "off grid".

But, next time you are sneezing into a hanky having fallen prey to another rhinovirus infection, you can take some solace from the fact that this is not a modern problem. Genetic analysis confirms that dinosaurs had herpes! More a case of T-sex than T-rex, perhaps...

I've literally worn a hole in the table tapping my fingers the last decade for this. Refreshing the page every thirty seconds !!

Thank ewe @chris. Absolutely fascinating and I was pondering the same all those years ago regarding how Mr and Mrs Virus may have done the deed and become mummy and daddy to life here.

 Brilliant answer. Thank ewe so much !!

Now to get that manicure after tapping my fingers for so long !!

T-sex....lol .....Norty dino !!

46

Just Chat! / Re: Puzzles From A Trampolining Upside Down Sheeps Bottom (PFATSB) :-)

« on: 04/06/2017 14:06:14 »

Well done !!!

Yes , it's a list of the top twenty most used words in the English language in order of commonality !!

Yayyyy

47

General Science / Re: Science Photo of the Week

« on: 01/06/2017 11:19:21 »

Pink Rainbow Over Marysville, Ohio


Screen Shot 2017-06-01 at 11.15.52.png (440.93 kB . 686x388 - viewed 44975 times)

BIGGY PICCY



Photographer: Raj Muddana
Summary Authors: Raj Muddana; Jim Foster

I noticed this eye-catching pinkish rainbow as I was driving to work in western Ohio earlier this spring and pulled off the road to snap a photo. The camera is facing west. Since the bow is arching so high, it's evident that it was taken when the Sun was very low in the sky -- in this case, the eastern sky. The reason it looks pink is because the Sun is reddened when lying close to the horizon. The thicker atmosphere (greater path length) sunlight must pass through when it's very low in the sky effectively extinguishes the shorter wavelength colors (violets, blues and greens). Sunlight must pass through about 40 times as much atmosphere when the Sun is on the horizon compared to when it's overhead. So raindrops in between my camera and the antisolar point are being illuminated by the reddish Sun directly behind me. Therefore the rainbow takes on a pinkish hue. Note that a portion of the secondary bow can be detected near the ground at left. Photo taken on March 20, 2017, at 7:36 a.m.

Photo Details: Camera Maker: Apple; Camera Model: iPhone 6; Focal Length: 4.2mm (35mm equivalent: 29mm); Aperture: ƒ/2.2; Exposure Time: 0.0083 s (1/120); ISO equiv: 500.

CREDIT EPOD

48

Just Chat! / Re: Puzzles From A Trampolining Upside Down Sheeps Bottom (PFATSB) :-)

« on: 01/06/2017 10:42:24 »

This weeks puzzle from an upside down trampolining sheeps bottom has been excreted below !!


upsidedowntrampoline_picmonkeyed.jpg (73.97 kB . 788x575 - viewed 31694 times)

What is the significance of the above rather convoluted sentence eloquently pronounced by my anal sphincter  ?

49

General Science / Re: Science Photo of the Week

« on: 27/05/2017 10:41:55 »

A Whole New Jupiter: First Science Results from NASA’s Juno Mission


Juno.jpg (260.25 kB . 2048x1152 - viewed 45066 times)

This image shows Jupiter’s south pole, as seen by NASA’s Juno spacecraft from an altitude of 32,000 miles (52,000 kilometers). The oval features are cyclones, up to 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) in diameter. Multiple images taken with the JunoCam instrument on three separate orbits were combined to show all areas in daylight, enhanced color, and stereographic projection.BIGGY PICCY HERE



Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Betsy Asher Hall/Gervasio Robles


Early science results from NASA’s Juno mission to Jupiter portray the largest planet in our solar system as a complex, gigantic, turbulent world, with Earth-sized polar cyclones, plunging storm systems that travel deep into the heart of the gas giant, and a mammoth, lumpy magnetic field that may indicate it was generated closer to the planet’s surface than previously thought.

“We are excited to share these early discoveries, which help us better understand what makes Jupiter so fascinating,” said Diane Brown, Juno program executive at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "It was a long trip to get to Jupiter, but these first results already demonstrate it was well worth the journey.”

Juno launched on Aug. 5, 2011, entering Jupiter’s orbit on July 4, 2016. The findings from the first data-collection pass, which flew within about 2,600 miles (4,200 kilometers) of Jupiter's swirling cloud tops on Aug. 27, are being published this week in two papers in the journal Science, as well as 44 papers in Geophysical Research Letters.

“We knew, going in, that Jupiter would throw us some curves,” said Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “But now that we are here we are finding that Jupiter can throw the heat, as well as knuckleballs and sliders. There is so much going on here that we didn’t expect that we have had to take a step back and begin to rethink of this as a whole new Jupiter.”

Among the findings that challenge assumptions are those provided by Juno’s imager, JunoCam. The images show both of Jupiter's poles are covered in Earth-sized swirling storms that are densely clustered and rubbing together.

“We're puzzled as to how they could be formed, how stable the configuration is, and why Jupiter’s north pole doesn't look like the south pole,” said Bolton. “We're questioning whether this is a dynamic system, and are we seeing just one stage, and over the next year, we're going to watch it disappear, or is this a stable configuration and these storms are circulating around one another?”

Another surprise comes from Juno’s Microwave Radiometer (MWR), which samples the thermal microwave radiation from Jupiter’s atmosphere, from the top of the ammonia clouds to deep within its atmosphere. The MWR data indicates that Jupiter’s iconic belts and zones are mysterious, with the belt near the equator penetrating all the way down, while the belts and zones at other latitudes seem to evolve to other structures. The data suggest the ammonia is quite variable and continues to increase as far down as we can see with MWR, which is a few hundred miles or kilometers.

Prior to the Juno mission, it was known that Jupiter had the most intense magnetic field in the solar system. Measurements of the massive planet’s magnetosphere, from Juno’s magnetometer investigation (MAG), indicate that Jupiter’s magnetic field is even stronger than models expected, and more irregular in shape. MAG data indicates the magnetic field greatly exceeded expectations at 7.766 Gauss, about 10 times stronger than the strongest magnetic field found on Earth.

“Juno is giving us a view of the magnetic field close to Jupiter that we’ve never had before,” said Jack Connerney, Juno deputy principal investigator and the lead for the mission’s magnetic field investigation at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Already we see that the magnetic field looks lumpy: it is stronger in some places and weaker in others. This uneven distribution suggests that the field might be generated by dynamo action closer to the surface, above the layer of metallic hydrogen. Every flyby we execute gets us closer to determining where and how Jupiter’s dynamo works.”

Juno also is designed to study the polar magnetosphere and the origin of Jupiter's powerful auroras—its northern and southern lights. These auroral emissions are caused by particles that pick up energy, slamming into atmospheric molecules. Juno’s initial observations indicate that the process seems to work differently at Jupiter than at Earth.

Juno is in a polar orbit around Jupiter, and the majority of each orbit is spent well away from the gas giant. But, once every 53 days, its trajectory approaches Jupiter from above its north pole, where it begins a two-hour transit (from pole to pole) flying north to south with its eight science instruments collecting data and its JunoCam public outreach camera snapping pictures. The download of six megabytes of data collected during the transit can take 1.5 days.

“Every 53 days, we go screaming by Jupiter, get doused by a fire hose of Jovian science, and there is always something new,” said Bolton. “On our next flyby on July 11, we will fly directly over one of the most iconic features in the entire solar system -- one that every school kid knows -- Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. If anybody is going to get to the bottom of what is going on below those mammoth swirling crimson cloud tops, it’s Juno and her cloud-piercing science instruments.”

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, manages the Juno mission for NASA. The principal investigator is Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. The Juno mission is part of the New Frontiers Program managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, in Denver, built the spacecraft.

CREDIT NASA

50

General Science / Re: Science Photo of the Week

« on: 11/05/2017 11:10:18 »

The Multiwavelength Crab


multiWcrab_lg1024c.jpg (71.55 kB . 1024x714 - viewed 44787 times)



Image Credit: NASA, ESA, G. Dubner (IAFE, CONICET-University of Buenos Aires) et al.;
A. Loll et al.; T. Temim et al.; F. Seward et al.; VLA/NRAO/AUI/NSF; Chandra/CXC;
Spitzer/JPL-Caltech; XMM-Newton/ESA; Hubble/STScI


Explanation: The Crab Nebula is cataloged as M1, the first object on Charles Messier's famous list of things which are not comets. In fact, the Crab is now known to be a supernova remnant, expanding debris from massive star's death explosion, witnessed on planet Earth in 1054 AD. This brave new image offers a 21st century view of the Crab Nebula by presenting image data from across the electromagnetic spectrum as wavelengths of visible light. From space, Chandra (X-ray) XMM-Newton (ultraviolet), Hubble (visible), and Spitzer (infrared), data are in purple, blue, green, and yellow hues. From the ground, Very Large Array radio wavelength data is in shown in red. One of the most exotic objects known to modern astronomers, the Crab Pulsar, a neutron star spinning 30 times a second, is the bright spot near picture center. Like a cosmic dynamo, this collapsed remnant of the stellar core powers the Crab's emission across the electromagnetic spectrum. Spanning about 12 light-years, the Crab Nebula is 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Taurus.

Biggy PiCCY HERE

credit:APOD

51

General Science / Re: Science Photo of the Week

« on: 08/05/2017 11:03:19 »

Ancient Ogunquit Beach on Mars



Screen Shot 2017-05-08 at 11.02.36.png (864.5 kB . 869x579 - viewed 40773 times)


Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, MSSS;
This was once a beach -- on ancient Mars. The featured 360-degree panorama, horizontally compressed, was taken by the robotic Curiosity rover currently exploring the red planet. Named Ogunquit Beach after its terrestrial counterpart, evidence shows that at times long ago the area was underwater, while at other times it was at the edge of an ancient lake. The light peak in the central background is the top of Mount Sharp, the central feature in Gale Crater where Curiosity has been deployed. Curiosity is slowly ascending Mount Sharp. Portions of the dark sands in the foreground have been scooped up for analysis. The light colored bedrock is composed of sediment that likely settled at the bottom of the now-dried lakebed. The featured panorama (interactive version here) was created from over 100 images acquired in late March and seemingly signed by the rover on the lower left. Currently, Curiosity is carefully crossing deep megaripples of dark sands on its way to explore Vera Rubin Ridge.

CREDIT APOD

52

General Science / Re: Science Photo of the Week

« on: 02/05/2017 10:02:22 »

Ice cave in Transylvania yields window into region's past


6_Small Reserve2_Ciubotarescu.jpg (576.4 kB . 1417x1061 - viewed 42853 times)
Credit: C. Ciubotarescu

Ice cores drilled from a glacier in a cave in Transylvania offer new evidence of how Europe's winter weather and climate patterns fluctuated during the last 10,000 years, known as the Holocene period.

The cores provide insights into how the region's climate has changed over time. The researchers' results, published this week in the journal Scientific Reports, could help reveal how the climate of the North Atlantic region, which includes the U.S., varies on long time scales.

The project, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Romanian Ministry of Education, involved scientists from the University of South Florida (USF), University of Belfast, University of Bremen and Stockholm University, among other institutions.

Researchers from the Emil Racoviță Institute of Speleology in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, and USF's School of Geosciences gathered their evidence in the world's most-explored ice cave and oldest cave glacier, hidden deep in the heart of Transylvania in central Romania.

With its towering ice formations and large underground ice deposit, Scărișoara Ice Cave is among the most important scientific sites in Europe.

Scientist Bogdan Onac of USF and his colleague Aurel Perșoiu, working with a team of researchers in Scărișoara Ice Cave, sampled the ancient ice there to reconstruct winter climate conditions during the Holocene period.

Over the last 10,000 years, snow and rain dripped into the depths of Scărișoara, where they froze into thin layers of ice containing chemical evidence of past winter temperature changes.

Until now, scientists lacked long-term reconstructions of winter climate conditions. That knowledge gap hampered a full understanding of past climate dynamics, Onac said.

"Most of the paleoclimate records from this region are plant-based, and track only the warm part of the year -- the growing season," says Candace Major, program director in NSF's Directorate for Geosciences, which funded the research. "That misses half the story. The spectacular ice cave at Scărișoara fills a crucial piece of the puzzle of past climate change in recording what happens during winter."

Reconstructions of Earth's climate record have relied largely on summer conditions, charting fluctuations through vegetation-based samples, such as tree ring width, pollen and organisms that thrive in the warmer growing season.

Absent, however, were important data from winters, Onac said.

Located in the Apuseni Mountains, the region surrounding the Scărișoara Ice Cave receives precipitation from the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea and is an ideal location to study shifts in the courses storms follow across East and Central Europe, the scientists say.

Radiocarbon dating of minute leaf and wood fragments preserved in the cave's ice indicates that its glacier is at least 10,500 years old, making it the oldest cave glacier in the world and one of the oldest glaciers on Earth outside the polar regions.

From samples of the ice, the researchers were able to chart the details of winter conditions growing warmer and wetter over time in Eastern and Central Europe. Temperatures reached a maximum during the mid-Holocene some 7,000 to 5,000 years ago and decreased afterward toward the Little Ice Age, 150 years ago.

A major shift in atmospheric dynamics occurred during the mid-Holocene, when winter storm tracks switched and produced wetter and colder conditions in northwestern Europe, and the expansion of a Mediterranean-type climate toward southeastern Europe.

"Our reconstruction provides one of the very few winter climate reconstructions, filling in numerous gaps in our knowledge of past climate variability," Onac said.

Warming winter temperatures led to rapid environmental changes that allowed the northward expansion of Neolithic farmers toward mainland Europe, and the rapid population of the continent.

"Our data allow us to reconstruct the interplay between Atlantic and Mediterranean sources of moisture," Onac said. "We can also draw conclusions about past atmospheric circulation patterns, with implications for future climate changes. Our research offers a long-term context to better understand these changes."

The results from the study tell scientists how the climate of the North Atlantic region, which includes the U.S., varies on long time scales. The scientists are continuing their cave study, working to extend the record back 13,000 years or more.

CREDIT NSF

53

Just Chat! / Re: Puzzles From A Trampolining Upside Down Sheeps Bottom (PFATSB) :-)

« on: 25/04/2017 20:30:31 »

I'm flagging a bit, feel all at sea.

Lol !!  Ewe got it !!  Its the proportion of the colours on the French flag. Well done !!

IMG_7940.PNG (76.43 kB . 731x859 - viewed 31031 times)

54

Just Chat! / Todays Harry Potter Science Joke Piccy

« on: 25/04/2017 19:47:35 »

lol


Screen Shot 2017-04-25 at 19.45.58.png (394.78 kB . 655x363 - viewed 39141 times)

55

General Science / Re: Science Photo of the Week

« on: 25/04/2017 19:30:14 »

Three Parts Of the Night Sky


6a0105371bb32c970b01bb09815d2e970d.jpg (140.76 kB . 1500x994 - viewed 52441 times)

Photographer: Marcelo Zurita
Summary Authors: Marcelo Zurita; Jim Foster

In this one photo I was able to capture cloud-to-cloud lightning (at bottom), a starry sky above the storm clouds and a dazzling meteor. It was taken from a rural area in Brazil's eastern-most state of Paraiba. My attention was actually on the distant storm on the horizon but as I snapped the shutter a meteor passed through the field of view. The lightning is at an altitude of perhaps 40,000 ft (12,192 m); the meteor is streaking by 70 mi (112 km) or so above the Earth's surface; the brightest star in the frame, Menkar (at upper right center in the constellation of Cetus), lies approximately 250 light years from our solar system.

Photo Details: Camera Model: NIKON D5100; Focal Length: 14.0mm (35mm equivalent: 21mm); Aperture: ƒ/5.0; Exposure Time: 30.000 s; ISO equiv: 800; Software: GIMP 2.8.14.


CREDIT ESPOD

56

Physiology & Medicine / Re: Why do men shiver involuntarily when urinating?

« on: 25/04/2017 02:11:58 »

Surely it's because it takes a while to write your name in the snow !  It's a no-brainer isn't it?

57

General Science / Re: Science Photo of the Week

« on: 24/04/2017 09:57:36 »

Between the Rings


PIA21445.croplevels.jpg (55.7 kB . 800x1100 - viewed 41366 times)
Image Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA


 On April 12, as the Sun was blocked by the disk of Saturn the Cassini spacecraft camera looked toward the inner Solar System and the gas giant's backlit rings. At the top of the mosaicked view is the A ring with its broader Encke and narrower Keeler gaps visible. At the bottom is the F ring, bright due to the viewing geometry. The point of light between the rings is Earth, 1.4 billion kilometers in the distance. Look carefully and you can even spot Earth's large moon, a pinprick of light to the planet's left. Today Cassini makes its final close approach to Saturn's own large moon Titan, using Titan's gravity to swing into the spacecraft's Grand Finale, the final set of orbits that will bring Cassini just inside Saturn's rings.

Credit APOD

58

General Science / Re: Science Photo of the Week

« on: 17/04/2017 11:32:19 »

Life-Enabling Plumes above Enceladus



EnceladusShadow_Cassini_960.jpg (229.26 kB . 960x727 - viewed 41472 times)
Image Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA


Does Enceladus have underground oceans that could support life? The discovery of jets spewing water vapour and ice was detected by the Saturn-orbiting Cassini spacecraft in 2005. The origin of the water feeding the jets, however, was originally unknown. Since discovery, evidence has been accumulating that Enceladus has a deep underground sea, warmed by tidal flexing. Pictured here, the textured surface of Enceladus is visible in the foreground, while rows of plumes rise from ice fractures in the distance. These jets are made more visible by the Sun angle and the encroaching shadow of night. A recent fly-through has found evidence that a plume -- and so surely the underlying sea -- is rich in molecular hydrogen, a viable food source for microbes that could potentially be living there.

Credit:APOD

59

Physiology & Medicine / Why/How Do People Lose Their Creativity ?

« on: 14/04/2017 15:47:50 »

Dear Science peeps of Extraordinary Academic Savvy & Know-how Adeptness !!

As a sheepy I am of course at the height of my creativity genius. In fact, its safe to say I've always been at my peak !! and always will be. Modesty being my most inspiring trait.


Here, look at what I just created :


Screen Shot 2017-04-14 at 15.32.01.png (355.21 kB . 692x374 - viewed 24005 times)
Up For Sale At Bonhmas next Wednesday est: £20 million. Which is nice !


Unlike myself, creativity in certain fields of artistic areas seems to spike and then is never reached again, one-hit wonders, and musical artists that seem to hit their peak with their first few choons, sequels to films that never seem to match the original, writers get 'writers block' and seem to lose their creative bent.

Why Do People Get Writers Block  ? Why do people lose their ability to be creative ? What is the mechanism for a loss of imagination ?

Whajafink ?

Ewe see, I dont know !...if ewe answer then I will know and we will both know, and knowing is good , not knowing is not good !

Hugs & Shmishes

mwah mwah mwah !!

Sheepy
xxxxxx



Form a queue
For my poo
It's sitting on the moss
There it is steaming new
Quality compost ! lol

60

Physiology & Medicine / Re: What is a déjà vu?

« on: 14/04/2017 14:35:33 »

Tuvok from Voyager quoted my favourite definition of déjà vu

"Perhaps you are experiencing a paradoxical state dependant associative phenomenon"

Now if thats not a great chat up line then I dont know what is !