Notices by Flipboard Science Desk (sciencedesk@flipboard.social), page 3

Perhaps we’ve been looking at forgetfulness all wrong. This article from @LiveScience tells us how forgetting has some functional purposes. For example, imagine getting bogged down with thousands of irrelevant memories. Read more: https://flip.it/uSn93V
#Science Psychology #Brain #Health Human #Mind

Somebody moved the U.K.'s oldest satellite, and no one knows who or why.

@BBCNews reports: "Launched in 1969, just a few months after humans first set foot on the Moon, Skynet-1A was put high above Africa's east coast to relay communications for British forces. ... But today, curiously, Skynet-1A is actually half a planet away, in a position 22,369 miles (36,000km) above the Americas."

https://flip.it/0mg472

#Space #Satellite #UK #Science

A little bit of Democrat joy from @bolts as they report on Monique Worrell, the state attorney who was ousted by Ron DeSantis last year, and beat her replacement, Federalist Society member Andrew Bain, to win her job back.

https://boltsmag.org/tampa-orlando-proscutor-elections-2024/

#Florida #Voting #USElection #MoniqueWorrell #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

Democrats in Texas were thrashed in last week’s election. It wasn’t supposed to go like this. For @TexasObserver, Gus Bova looks at how it happened, and offers a couple of things to think about.

https://www.texasobserver.org/texas-democrats-lost-decade-2024/

#Texas #TexasDemocrats #ColinAllred #BetoORourke #BernieSanders #USElection #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

An asteroid impacted Earth’s atmosphere just hours after being spotted in October, avoiding detection by impact monitoring systems as it approached Earth. Luckily, the object, which was the third ‘imminent impactor’ of 2024, measured just 3 feet (1 meter) in diameter and wasn’t a threat to anything on the ground. Read more from @Space.com@Flipboard.com about planetary defense efforts that catalog objects posing threats to Earth.

https://flip.it/MfjYx5

#Space #Asteroid #Science #Earth #Impact

The ancient scourge of tuberculosis has reclaimed its title as the deadliest infectious disease. COVID-19 had eclipsed TB as the top killer but those numbers are now down.

“The fact that TB still kills and sickens so many people is an outrage, when we have the tools to prevent it, detect it and treat it,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general.

From @npr: https://flip.it/Tl.gSI

#TB #Tuberculosis #Disease #PublicHealth #COVID #Health #WHO

In the U.S., residents are warned after 43 monkeys escape South Carolina research facility.

From @CBSNews: "Residents are strongly advised to keep doors and windows secured to prevent these animals from entering homes," police said earlier. "If you spot any of the escaped animals, please contact 911 immediately and refrain from approaching them."

https://flip.it/RHe--_

#Monkeys #Animals #Research #AnimalTesting

In 2017, then-President Donald Trump announced he was withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris climate accord signed two years earlier by nearly every country in the world. Green energy programs and climate policy were a frequent target of Trump’s first term in office, but there’s a lot of damage he can still do in a second term. Read more from @ConversationUS.

https://flip.it/NvWa_T

#Climate #Energy #Trump #Policy #Paris #Green

Researchers say a fossil discovered in South America is the largest Phorusrhacid, or “terror bird,” ever discovered. A 3D analysis of the fossil showed the specimen was attacked and killed by a massive caiman. Scientists say bone fragments suggest the terror bird could have stood over 9 feet (2.7 meters) tall. Read more from @LiveScience.

https://flip.it/Ya1Uc8

#Fossil #Bird #Colombia #Science #Discovery

Headline of the day: Putting vampire bats on treadmills reveals an unusual metabolism.

From Science News: "Blood-feeding bats burn more amino acids during exercise, unlike carbs or fats other mammals use."

https://flip.it/9ioxH6

#Animals #Bats #Science #Biology

Two astronauts, Sunita “Suni” Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore, were sent on a mission to the International Space Station for what was supposed to be a week-long trip. Five months later, Suni and Butch are still there, awaiting a new spacecraft from SpaceX to be ready to take them home. Here’s when the astronauts will be back on Earth and their future plans from @cnet.

https://flip.it/0RxLai

#Space #ISS #SpaceX #NASA #Earth

It might sound like 1970s decor, but researchers in Japan just launched the first wood-paneled satellite into space. Scientists at Kyoto University built the device to test the sustainability of timber as a renewable building material for space exploration projects. The satellite panels were made using a traditional technique without screws or glue. Read more from @BBCNews.

https://flip.it/pIw_I3

#Space #SpaceX #Satellite #Japan #Sustainability

Here's a little something for those of you feeling existential dread today.

From @PopularScience: Without humans, what would happen to Earth? "People have considered versions of this apocalyptic thought experiment for centuries, if not millenia. ... Ideas of human extinction and societal dissolution are rampant in religious texts and myths of ancient cultures."

https://flip.it/Cx.KUI

#Extinction #Life #Earth #Science #Humanity #ClimateChange

What a 500-year-old shipwreck can tell us about how we age.

From @JenLucPiquant at @ArsTechnica: "Henry VIII's favorite warship, the Mary Rose, sank in battle in 1545. Archaeologists successfully raised the ship in 1982, along with thousands of articles and the remains of 179 crew members—all remarkably well preserved thanks to the anaerobic conditions of the shipwreck created by the layers of soft sediment that accumulated over the wreckage."

https://flip.it/x-w9LO

Here's the original study: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0311717

#Archaeology #Shipwreck #Science #Aging

Are any animals truly "immortal?"

@popsci looks at creatures who defy biological time:
"From tiny jellyfish to one-ton sharks, some animals subvert scientific expectations about aging and death."

https://flip.it/lA1I.j

#Animals #Life #Science #Death #Evolution

“Hold on, let me show you what you’re doing wrong.” What is it about know-it-alls that makes them think they know everything? There are several quirks of human psychology that help explain this behavior, and @sciencefocus takes aim at one: naïve realism. Read more: https://flip.it/YrCasu
#Science #Psychology #Brain #Human #HumanBehavior

You never know where a town might pop up — even if it was established, and later abandoned, during the Bronze Age. The remains of a town being dubbed al-Natah was recently discovered in an oasis in modern-day Saudi Arabia. al-Natah was built around 2,400 BC and home to about 500 residents. It lasted 1,000 years, but no one knows why it was abandoned. There’s more from @CBSNews: https://flip.it/y9KClc
#Science #BronzeAge #History #SaudiArabia #Archeology

A supermassive black hole from the early universe is the most voracious ever seen. Its name is LID-568 and it is devouring stuff at 40 times more than the Eddington limit (the theoretical maximum). "This black hole is having a feast," says astronomer Julia Scharwächter of Gemini Observatory and the National Science Foundation's NOIRLab. "This extreme case shows that a fast-feeding mechanism above the Eddington limit is one of the possible explanations for why we see these very heavy black holes so early in the universe." @ScienceAlert has more: https://flip.it/Hc.xQR
#Space #Science #BlackHoles #Galaxy

A bold new experiment suggests humans could help butterflies outrun global warming.

From @AnthropoceneMag: "Scientists want to grow novel higher-elevation forest for the butterflies. But it will take a half a century — and that creates a tricky balancing act."

https://flip.it/X7CMZX

#ClimateChange #Butterfly #Insects #Science #Entomology

Saturn’s moon Titan may have a six-mile-thick crust of methane ice. Could there be life under it? @LiveScience explores the possibility and how such a discovery could benefit the fight against human-driven climate change on Earth: https://flip.it/l5ToiP
#Science #Space #Saturn #ClimateChange