1

General Science / Are there aliens made of lava?

« on: 14/01/2019 14:56:47 »

I'm not sure where to put this (and I wouldn't be offended if this thread were moved to New Theories). I recently watched an excellent youtube video about Saturn's moon, Titan:

I realized that we would be “lava aliens” on Titan—where cryo-volcanoes release liquid water (with dissolved species, like salts and ammonia), which freezes back into ice at the surface, creating domes and other geological features almost completely analogous to our own volcano-dominated landscapes. Our body temp would certainly be high enough to boil their lakes (liquid methane and ethane) and melt some of their "rocks" (many of which are composed of water ice or heavy hydrocarbons, like benzene). We would need to bundle up to keep ourselves from freezing to death.

Likewise, we could imagine molten silicate-based life forms, from much hotter places (maybe even inside the earth???) which would need to bundle up quite warm to keep from freezing to death on our surface. They would instantly boil water, and could melt our rocks. Would they consume lava from volcanoes as we would water from cryo-volcanoes on Titan?

Many have previously discussed the possibility of silicon-based life, some recognizing that higher temps might be involved.

I wonder what sort of chemistry would be involved in such life forms...

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Could Oumuamua be a light sail?

« on: 06/11/2018 15:05:15 »

Remember Oumuamua? (that interstellar thing that whizzed by us in 2017?) They're not saying it's aliens... (please be aliens! ...maybe?) but they are saying it is consistent with a light sail. (and "they" includes the chair of the astronomy department at Harvard)
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1810.11490.pdf

Part of the evidence is a previously published result that shows non-gravitational acceleration away from the sun with a statistical significance of 30 sigma (that's very high)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0254-4

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Physiology & Medicine / Moved: Hpv is only sexually transmitted. This is a neurological disease and not

« on: 01/10/2018 19:10:50 »

I have taken the liberty of moving the thread, "Hpv is only sexually transmitted. This is a neurological disease and not a vener" to the New Theories section of the forum. It can be found here:

https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=74976.0

I would like to reiterate that most of the sections of this forum are reserved for discussions of generally accepted science, and are not suitable for threads that focus on selling new theories that run contrary to generally accepted science. Threads that do focus on selling new theories that run contrary to generally accepted science belong in the "New Theories" or "That CAN'T be true" sections.

Thank you.

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Physiology & Medicine / Moved: Can cancers be treated by burning them with a hot probe?

« on: 29/09/2018 18:47:22 »

I have taken the liberty of moving the thread: Can cancers be treated by burning them with a hot probe? to the New Theories section of the forum. It can be found here: https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=74771.0

I would like to reiterate that most of the sections of this forum are reserved for discussions of generally accepted science, and are not suitable for threads that focus on selling new theories that run contrary to generally accepted science. Threads that do focus on selling new theories that run contrary to generally accepted science belong in the "New Theories" or "That CAN'T be true" sections.

Thank you.

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Moved: Why do protons not decay?

« on: 25/08/2018 16:51:47 »

This thread appears not really to be a question about protons decaying, and more of a case for a new theory of matter-antimatter asymmetry. Thus, it has been moved to the New Theories sub-forum, and can be found here: https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=74586.0

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That CAN'T be true! / Is yuno44907 really banned?

« on: 29/05/2018 01:24:06 »

Yes, yuno44907 has been banned, and the thread started by this former member has been moved to the recycle bin. Apologies to those members who did spend time responding to the posts within this thread, they are also in the recycle bin (if you feel strongly about having the text of those messages, PM me, and I can send it your way). And apologies as well to anyone else who spent any time reading the posts of yuno44907... we gave him a chance, and it was squandered.

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Chemistry / How toxic is cinnabar (vermillion)?

« on: 05/05/2018 14:09:31 »

Cinnabar is a beautiful naturally-occurring mineral composed of mercuric sulfide (HgS). There are many examples of jewelry, statues, and even plates made of the stuff, but a quick online search also reveals many pages warning of its unparalleled toxicity (and nearly as many talking about its "crystal healing properties"--ugh I hate that pseudoscience! but I digress...). The only material safety data sheets I have come across do not list any LD50 data. The question is, is cinnabar actually really toxic, or are people just assuming that it is because of the mercury content?

I am well aware of the toxicity of elemental mercury, organometallic mercury compounds, and water-soluble mercury salts, but I also know that actual toxicity is a function of both inherent toxicity and bioavailability. HgS is one of the most water-insoluble compounds: its K_sp is on the order of 10^–54, meaning that a saturated solution in water would only contain about one or two mercury atoms per liter!! And other resources indicate that it will only react with very strong acids to produce soluble species (I wouldn't want to eat it).

Industrially, the compound is roasted to produce sulfur oxides and elemental mercury. So is the toxicity of the mineral due to slow oxidation in the air, leading to production of Hg metal?

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / How fundamental is time?

« on: 01/05/2018 17:50:19 »

Please note: This thread may sit on the edge of generally accepted science and speculation. I would like to keep it in this sub-forum (which is intended for discussions of generally accepted science), so let us agree to be clear about when we are speculating/hypothesizing.  Thanks! (also note: While I personally have a fairly advanced understanding of QM, I have only a modest understanding of general relativity, so please bear with me, and know that I am here to learn)

~~~~

Time is simultaneously (sorry) a simple concept and a difficult one to grasp. Clearly, our perception (as human beings) of time is not entirely quantitative. There are many different biological and psychological aspects of our perception that I do not want to delve in to. Rather, I would like to discuss purely physical and mathematical interpretations of time.

I have had many questions about time swirling in my head for a while now, and I think I can distill them into two primary questions:

(1) Is time the most fundamental "temporal" dimension, or is it a function of an unrecognized dimension?
This question comes about when trying to conceive of an absolute time scale. Every equation I have come across in my education in the physical sciences deals with dt or Δt, and so is really just dealing with relative time (t = 0 is arbitrary or internally defined, and any indefinite ∫f(t)dt will have that pesky "+ c" term).

Many people point to the Big Bang as the natural t = 0, but this raises at least as many problems as it addresses.

So is time a function of another more fundamental parameter t = G(α), and most of our equations are actually only valid for α, but are comfortably within experimental error of t?

For example let us imagine that α = t +ln(t)/t (unfortunately, there is no algebraic solution for the inverse, but we can solve it graphically, just by swapping the α and t axes--it would be nice if someone can recommend a function that has similar properties but can be explicitly solved both ways):

Screen Shot 2018-05-01 at 12.11.47 PM.png (36.26 kB . 570x563 - viewed 1968 times)

(If we look at the blue curve pictured above, and consider the abscissa as the α axis and the ordinate is the t axis)
Clearly, consideration of t ≤ 0 gives only nonsensical results, but the function is well-defined for all values of α, and for large positive values of α (or t), α ≈ t. For example, t = 1000 returns α = 1000.006908 (an error of about 7 ppm), and for t = 10¹⁰ the error is only 2.3×10^–19, well beyond the temporal precision of any experiment I know of. And the convergence of dα and dt (or Δα and Δt) will come even faster.

This relation has the obvious shortcoming that it requires some explicit definition of the unit (you will get different answers using years, seconds, or any other arbitrary unit) ie we have traded the problem of an absolute zero for the problem of an absolute 1. Perhaps there may be a fundamental unit of time (and therefore a fundamental unit of space, based on the relationship defined by the speed of light)?

However, this may obviate some of the difficulties that come when considering inflation (the big bang type, and perhaps what we see now). How could we experimentally (or theoretically) test the validity of this type of model?

(2) Are there different "kinds" of time?
Just as there is inertial mass and gravitational mass, which are conceptually different, but appear to be the same, for reasons which (to the best of my knowledge) still elude us. Are there conceptually independent "kinds" of time?

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Physiology & Medicine / MOVED: What is psychoenergetics research?

« on: 02/03/2018 20:53:28 »

This thread is now in the New Thoeries Section
https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=72487.0

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Chemistry / Does one invent or discover new synthetic compounds?

« on: 28/02/2018 18:00:32 »

This may be just an issue of semantics, but it has come up again in conversation recently, and I wanted to see what others think.

I think most would agree that when a chemist who isolates a previously undescribed natural product from a sea slug, this is an act of discovery. The compound already existed, and has been produced (or harvested) and used by these creatures for likely several millennia, at least.

But what about when a chemist performs a chemical reaction in the laboratory, creating a previously undescribed synthetic compound. For the most compelling argument in favor of "invention," let us say that the structure of the compound was specifically chosen (designed) for a particular purpose, and that this compound was then intentionally made. Furthermore the molecule is sufficiently complex and distinct from naturally occurring motifs that it is highly unlikely that the compound had ever existed before in the observable universe (it can be calculated that for even modestly sized molecules made from only a handful of elements, there are so many possible stable structures that there isn't enough matter in the observable universe to make a single molecule of each--not by several orders of magnitude!)

If this most stringent definition is not enough to claim "invention," why not?

And if it is, does it cease to be an invention if the compound had been intentionally made before? What about just naturally produced somehow? Or if it was not actually the intended product (if a new compound is made by accident, does it still count?)

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Can you believe this photo of a single atom?

« on: 15/02/2018 22:11:39 »

atom-big.jpg (184.12 kB . 1863x1863 - viewed 1392 times)

The speck of light in the center of the photo is purported to be light being emitted from a single atom. Impressive!

From: http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2018/02/photo-of-a-single-atom/

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General Science / Must ∞ monkeys on ∞ typewriters really write everything given ∞ time?

« on: 13/02/2018 18:56:05 »

There is something that has been bothering me for quite some time now, and I would like to try some discussion of it here.

I have some trepidation starting a thread about infinity, as it is a very difficult topic, but I trust that the discussion will at least be interesting.

There is a commonly presented notion that infinite sets must contain everything. It often comes up when someone claims that infinitely many monkeys each with a typewriter and an infinite amount of time typing will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakspeare (as well as every version of the bible, including one in which every mention of God is replaced with the word Spatula. etc.) Or it is said that the multiverse theory implies infinitely many different variations of the universe, representing all of the things that are possible. Or that any finite string of digits that one can imagine must be present in the digits of π (or e or φ) etc.

I have always felt that there was some logical fallacy in this line of reasoning, but I cannot quite prove to myself that there is a contradiction.

When trying to think of a counterargument, I usually start with something along the lines of:
I can come up with infinitely many infinitely long strings of numbers that are non-repeating, but never contain a certain string of numbers. For instance 0.1234567890011223344556678899000111222333444555666777888999000... will never ever contain the string 2468 in it.

Now, I think that the problem this argument has is that the example I used is clearly not random. However, I could make adjustments to the algorithm that I use to generate these strings of numbers such that they are effectively random--equal ratios of each digit, and each dyad and each triad (pairs and trios of digits), and no way to predict the next number in a string given all previous digits, other than the number won't contain a single instance of finite string X. The longer finite string X is, the easier it is to generate an algorithm that is otherwise random.

I suppose the counter-argument to that is that "effectively random" and "actually random" are not the same thing. If each digit truly has a random distribution within the string, then any string of finite length must have a finite nonzero probability of happening, and that therefore with infinitely many digits the expected number of times the string appears would have to be infinite (any finite, nonzero number times infinity must be infinite).

Thoughts?

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General Science / what are the complex solutions for x[sup]2[/sup] + y[sup]2[/sup] = 1 ?

« on: 11/02/2018 21:54:21 »

The familiar equation for the unit circle centered at the origin of the (x,y) coordinate system is:
 x² + y² = 1

Using only real numbers for both x and y only yields useful solutions for –1 ≤ x ≤ 1 and –1 ≤ y ≤ 1. But if we allow for either x or y to have nonzero imaginary components (x or y can be imaginary or complex), then the solution is no longer just a unit circle, but an odd 2-dimensional surface in 4-dimensional space (x, a, y, b) such that (x + a×i)² + (y + b×i)² = 1.

Try as I might, I am having great difficulties trying to visualize this surface. I can generate a few different 3-d slices, like a = 0 for which all of the points have only real components of the x coordinate. This slice contains a unit circle in the x,y plane, and a hyperbola in the x,b plane (x² – b² = 1). Similarly for the b = 0 slice we also see the same unit circle and a hyperbola in the y,a plane (y² – a² = 1).

Which other slices would be useful for me to try to graph to visualize the rest of this shape? (I am tempted to look at x=y or just something like several parallel planes using integer values of a or b.

14

Chemistry / Why does cocoa powder disperse faster in hot black tea than in hot water?

« on: 09/02/2018 17:07:35 »

There is a phenomenon that I have witnessed many times over the years, but haven't actually seriously addressed at any point (yet).

I happen to like a little extra kick in my cocoa occasionally, and will brew a cup of strong black tea, to which I will add the dry ingredients for hot chocolate. Cocoa is quite hydrophobic, and when added to hot water will clump up on itself, only dispersing into the water after vigorous stirring. When added to the tea however, it appears to be much more easily wetted, and much less stirring is involved in preparing the hot chocolate. Question is why?

Perhaps some components of the tea reduce the surface tension of the water. Or maybe they act as detergents and decrease hydrophobicity... Is it a pH thing? What components would it be? Polyphenols are my best guess for any of the explanations (see compositions of tea: https://worldoftea.org/tea-chemistry/), but I am wondering if there are other possible explanations I have missed.

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General Science / Would registered reports be a good way to disseminate STEM research?

« on: 06/02/2018 18:29:30 »

One of the major problems with peer-reviewed research is that reviewers and editors are often more interested in how compelling the 'story' of the paper is than how carefully designed and executed the study itself was. (Are the results presented in a way that unambiguously proves something that was unexpected? great, publish in Nature! You showed that the actual system of study is very complex and that multiple explanations might be equally valid, but you yourself didn't have the means or time to experimentally distinguish them? Let's send that to Acta Apathetica...)

This not only deprives the field of important null results or confirmations of already-widely-accepted theories, but also has had a profound (and profoundly negative) effect on the approach to research. Instead of generating and testing hypotheses, many researchers resort to collecting as much information as possible, and then seeing if they can coax any trends or correlations out. (This isn't always a terrible research strategy, but it has major implications on how the results should be treated.)  Given a large enough pool of data, the chances of there not being any spurious correlations falls to zero, so unscrupulous researchers can present apparently bullet-proof statistical analyses that have no predictive merit, and are unlikely to be supported by attempts to replicate the study.

The alternative of "registered reports" involves review of the experimental method (is the research question interesting and well-addressed by the methods proposed?). Reviewers can offer recommendations before the experiment is done, and then once everyone is happy, the journal guarantees publication of the results and analysis whatever they may be.

I don't know how well this could be applied to chemistry (my field), where we have such limited understanding compared to how complex the world of chemistry is--which means there are a lot of people shooting blindly, or doing "high throughput assays." But I do think that there are many types of experiments within my field that this would work well for.

I just saw this article about people trying this for social sciences (business and finance): http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2018/01/business-professors-aim-revamp-academic-tradition

It has also been tried in the life sciences: https://www.elsevier.com/reviewers-update/story/innovation-in-publishing/registered-reports-a-step-change-in-scientific-publishing

What do you think?

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Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution / Plants can be... anesthetized?

« on: 05/02/2018 16:02:05 »

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/02/science/plants-consciousness-anesthesia.html

The above article discusses a study which shows ether (diethyl ether)to  reversibly inhibit natural plant motion, and also lidocaine to prevent venus fly traps from sensing flies. The NYT article is couching this in terms of plant consciousness, which I am not sure plants have in any way that we can really understand as such. However, it does suggest that some of the biochemistry of stimulus response we have might be very ancient indeed (or somehow convergently evolved)

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / How common could fission-warmed rogue planets be?

« on: 31/01/2018 02:16:34 »

I have long been fascinated by the idea of habitable "rogue" or "orphan" planets that are not associated with any star, just flying through interstellar (even intergalactic?) space, but are kept at reasonable temperatures purely by fission of unstable isotopes within the planet. The recent detection of the neutron star collision has re-ignited my interest in the subject.

The ability to detect exoplanets has only been around for a few decades, but we have already established that there are probably more planets in orbit around stars than there are stars (most stars have at least one orbiting planet). But as far as I know, all of the methods we use find planets indirectly by directly observing the star. Rogue planets are therefore invisible to these techniques. And direct observation of a rocky planet that is not illuminated by a very nearby star is going to be extremely difficult (we can't even see whatever planet they think is past Pluto). But rogue planets in general might be quite common. There are enough binary (and ternary and quaternary) star systems out there, or solar systems with massive gas giants, that planets and moons must be thrown out all the time.

The particular case I am interested in is this: we now know (it had been theorized, but now is confirmed) that neutron star collisions generate and eject massive amounts of heavy elements (stable and unstable isotopes). Could a high local concentration of heavy elements lead to a small rocky planet that is highly enriched in elements heavier than nickel?

Most of the "short-lived" radioactive elements would be gone within say 50,000 years, and then you would probably be left with the same sorts of decay chains that we see on earth, just with higher abundances. If the abundances are just right (no idea what the range would be, but it would depend on surface area, albedo, atmosphere etc.) the planet could maintain a quasi-equilibrium between heat released through fission, and heat radiated to space by blackbody. Such planets would probably just cool monotonically from a maximum temperature (from aggregation and short-lived isotopes) down to space temp several (potentially many, many) billions of years later--so as long as it started out "too hot" the planet would still certainly be at a "habitable" temperature at some point during this process.

Chemistry (and biology!) on such planets would be extremely interesting. Of course, the same rules would apply, but have a natural world filled with platinum group metals and heavy halogens would allow for some very different natural chemical processes than we see here on earth.

If the planet were small enough (and warm enough) then it won't be able to hold onto volatiles like H₂, He, CH₄, NH₃, H₂O, Ne, N₂, CO, CO₂... It could be of an intermediate size where H₂ and He won't stick (most of what it would likely come across as it traverses the vast expanses). Or it could be large enough to hold onto everything it comes across, and won't probably turn into a gas giant or even seed a new star... The planet might also be producing quite a bit of helium to maintain its temp, so if it can hold on to He then its mass won't decrease, but the atmospheric pressure will increase and the fraction of He in it will increase....

Such planets would also probably be quite dense, and could have significantly higher surface gravity, with interesting implications for mechanics (geological and biological).

Anyway, I'm rambling now. Thoughts?

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / What is Oumuamua (our extrasolar visitor)?

« on: 13/12/2017 18:03:19 »

So apparently there is an object a few hundred meters long and about 100m across from well beyond the solar system that is traveling about between 20 and 45 km/s on a trajectory that brought it fairly close to all four terrestrial planets (it was about 32M km from earth at the closest). In the next day or two we will know whether or not there are any signs of AC currents or changing electromagnetic fields, because we have just trained a powerful radio telescope on the object, and will be able to detect any signal as strong as a cell phone.

Given what we know, it's almost certainly a radiation-seared rock that has been tumbling through interstellar space for millions or billions of years, but it is the first of its kind to be observed, and we would be remise if we had passed up the opportunity to see if it were actually an alien vessel or something, because how awesome would that be!

https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/oumuamua/indepth

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/11/updated-first-time-astronomers-are-tracking-distant-visitor-streaking-through-our-solar

https://www.space.com/39046-interstellar-object-oumuamua-breakthrough-listen-project.html

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / MOVED: space flight impossible

« on: 03/12/2017 02:40:31 »

I have moved the thread entitled, "space flight impossible" to the subforum entitled "that CAN'T be true" where it belongs.
find it here:
https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=71960.0

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Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution / MOVED: Could advanced alien technology change the laws of Physics and Chemistry?

« on: 17/11/2017 14:51:01 »

I have moved the topic "Could advanced alien technology change the laws of Physics and Chemistry?" into the "New Theories" section of the forum where it belongs.

Please remember to use the "New Theories" section when proposing ideas that diverge very significantly from commonly accepted science. Thank you.