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Science

  • Marie Patino, Leonardo Nicoletti and Sophie Alexander for Bloomberg:

    A Bloomberg analysis of the use of primary private planes among some of the richest people in the world finds that Musk comes out on top. For example, his private jet took more than twice as many trips as Ellison’s in 2022.

    ​​The roughly 2,112 metric tons of greenhouse gas emitted in 2022 from flight’s on Musk’s personal jet — not the Tesla or SpaceX corporate jets — is a tiny fraction of the 8.4 million metric tons that Tesla estimates its customers avoided emitting in 2021. But it’s more than 140 times the average American’s carbon footprint and, to make it up, a Tesla Model 3 would have to replace an average premium internal-combustion car for 7 million miles.

    On average, a normal person emits about 4 tons of carbon per year. This asshole contributed over 500x the amount of CO2 in 2022. Some additional context, Musk is infamous for creating problems for himself, micro-manages his teams and can’t seem to figure out teleconferencing. Musk continues to maintain a ridiculous illusion that he truly cares about the environment and is concerned for the future of humanity. It is all a facade. If he truly gave one iota, he could simply adjust his schedule to be more remote-friendly or I don’t know, maybe not take a private flight every day. Musk is and always has self-righteous silver-spooned spoiled piece of of shit.

  • I came across this excellent post on how to season a wok on Reddit. A classic Reddit post (that appears to have been cross-posted from TikTok). As is internet tradition, one of the top commenters was confused by the wok range and let us all know. A threaded conversation ensued. The last comment from a Redditor in particular shared a delightful video from Chef Wang that explains a bit about how ranges operate. Obviously, it get’s blazingly hot. So, it’s absolutely essential there’s running water on (or nearby) wok ranges:

    > i don’t understand both the seasoning process and the setup of this kitchen

    >> The wok burners produce a tremendous amount of heat required for proper wok cooking, the water cools the cooktop top, but the cooktop also contains a drain so the wok can be cleaned quickly (water is used only to maintain the wok seasoning), as well quick as access to water to use in cooking.

    >>> As explained and demonstrated by chef Wang here on what happens if you don’t have the flowing water: https://youtu.be/uTSsXQ-9bnQ

  • I think any genre succeeds from a few of these recommendations. But, a good rule of thumb, constraints are good. Typical creative constraints make you squint your eyes and see the world differently. Think of them as adding or subtracting weight resistance like at the gym. Only instead of working out your body, you’re exercising your brain! Here’s the first tweet in the thread:

    Adrian Bowyer is a retired Mechanical Engineering professor from University of Bath. A careered researcher in computational geometry, geometric modeling, and Biomimetics. According to his website, he is the founder of the RepRap Project, “humanity’s first general-purpose self-replicating manufacturing machine.” Pretty awesome! Sounds like he has some insights we should all hear out.

    Here’s the entire thread (saved from Thread Reader here) in a bullet-list for posterity:

    • The overriding rule, never to be forgotten, is: “Coincidence is a failure of art.” – Tom Stoppard
    • It is easy to blow something up. It is hard to have a character say something original, insightful and clever. But writers are dirt cheap. The ratio of explosions to wit should be 1:10 or less.
    • If at any point a reasonably scientifically informed audience is going to say, “But… PHYSICS?!” do it another way. The same goes for not following Darwinian evolution.
    • If the action is set in the future or the past, go through the script and remove every contemporary informal idiom of speech, where “contemporary” means at least the last fifty years. Replace EVERY cliche with a newly-coined metaphor or phrase.
    • The good guys should not beat the bad guys (if they do) because the bad guys have a system with a single point of failure.
    • Human culture has much more continuity than saltation. Have characters in the future occasionally do something from the past as a hobby – making bread, riding a horse, painting in oils; that sort of thing.
    • Spend money on set dressing. They won’t have oil drums in the future, nor will ship’s containers make it to other worlds.
    • Constraints make things more, not less, interesting. In particular, if something is powerful it should be difficult to use. For example, if someone is capable of telekinesis, then, when they use it, it should cost them a few days bed rest. And so on.
    • The Universe runs on conservation laws (Lagrangian symmetries). To make them more convincing new phenomena should also exhibit conservation laws.
    • Arthur C. Clarke’s “indistinguishable from magic” law is true. But that’s not an excuse to put in any old glowing-orb nonsense when the plot needs a deus ex machina. Go back and rewrite the plot so the deus ex machina isn’t needed.
    •  Faster than light travel makes everything parochial, and therefore less interesting.
    • Bipedal life will be very rare in the universe, as it is on Earth.
    • Artificial gravity is less captivating (!) and less probable than weightlessness.
    • “Go with your gut,” will be just as terrible advice in the future as it is here and now. Plots should reflect this immutable fact.
    • Brainstorm a number of un-commented-on technical innovations and put one in the background of each scene for the audience to notice, or not.

    Give Adrian (@adrianbowyer) a follow on Twitter here.

  • Besha Rodell for The New York Times:

    The “penguin parade” has been a major attraction since the 1920s, when tourists were led by torchlight to view the nightly arrival of the birds — the world’s smallest penguin breed, with adults averaging 13 inches tall — from a day of fishing and swimming.

    For much of that time, the penguins lived among the residents of a housing development, mostly modest vacation homes, in tight proximity to cars and pets, as well as ravenous foxes. The penguins’ numbers fell precipitously. But in 1985, the state government took an extraordinary step: It decided to buy every piece of property on the Summerland Peninsula and return the land to the penguins. The process was completed in 2010.

    The birds are now thriving. There are about 31,000 breeding penguins on the peninsula, up from 12,000 in the 1980s. Phillip Island Nature Parks is the most popular wildlife tourist destination in the state of Victoria, drawing 740,000 visitors in 2018. And late last month, a gleaming symbol of that success opened to the public: a $58 million visitor center, a striking star-shaped building with glass walls that look onto penguin burrows.

    The penguins are alright! 🐧💕

    This is the first time in a very long time, I’ve come across a positive environmental story. Make sure to checkout the entire piece at The Times. There’s incredible photography, and it’s such an uplifting tale. It’s proof-positive that when we come together, invest in long-term preservation efforts, we can make a lasting impact protecting what matters most to us — our shared home.

  • If you know me personally, you know how much I love The Times. It’s a wonderful newspaper I fell in love with in college. I’ve consistently held a subscription in one form or another since then. It has prestige, integrity and a wide breadth of reporting. From real estate musings, to the incredible science pieces. It’s the standard candle, few papers can emulate. It has growth rings and battle-scars like the great Redwoods in California:

    Update: speaking of frontpages of the New York Times, they really missed the opportunity on a proper headline to capture the racist-filled mass murdering that took place over the weekend. A total of 31 were left dead:

    Really really bad.

  • Jeffrey Gettleman and Hari Kumar for The New York Times writes:

    The mission was relatively inexpensive in space terms, costing less than $150 million — less than it cost to make the 2014 film “Interstellar.”

    But Chandrayaan-2 will take much longer to reach the moon than the relatively straight shot made by the Apollo missions, which cost billions (the presence of humans added to the price tag).

    The Indian orbiter will conserve fuel by making ever-widening orbits around Earth before being captured by the moon’s gravity and pulled into lunar orbit.

    This launch was a historic leap for India and the ISRO (India Space Research Organisation). This was the second attempt, two weeks ago, the launch was scrubbed at the last minute. The last Lunar mission the ISRO spearheaded, was the Chandrayaan-1, and if you need reminding — it was a colossal success and the entire science community of Earth benefitted from their findings. Generally speaking, the Chandrayaan-1 discovered water on the Moon. It used infrared spectrometry to detect water on the side of the Moon that faces away from us here on the third rock from the sun.

    Photo from The New York Times

    Chandrayaan-2 includes a rover, a lander, and an orbiter. The rover will collect samples for analysis. Given the fact that rovers sent to planetary realms typically outlive their lifespan, the possibility of sending a rover to the Moon is truly thrilling.

  • Researchers combined two forms of photography that drastically reduces the destruction of cells:

    The current microscope fills a 10-foot-long table. “It’s a bit of a Frankenstein’s monster right now,” says Betzig, who is moving to the University of California, Berkeley, in the fall. His team is working on a next-generation version that should fit on a small desk at a cost within the reach of individual labs. The first such instrument will go to Janelia’s Advanced Imaging Center, where scientists from around the world can apply to use it. Plans that scientists can use to create their own microscopes will also be made freely available. Ultimately, Betzig hopes that the adaptive optical version of the lattice microscope will be commercialized, as was the base lattice instrument before it. That could bring adaptive optics into the mainstream.

    “If you really want to understand the cell in vivo, and image it with the quality possible in vitro, this is the price of admission,” he says.

    This little guy wiggles and stretches like a piece of gum. I hope your two-dimensional perception of cells has been completely shattered. I’m reminded of the white blood cell chasing bacteria. The white blood cell footage was taken underneath glass slides which is why most cell footage appear to be cross-sections or two-dimensional.

    Further Reading: