Fed2 Star - June 17, 2018 - page 2 (of 2)
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Fiona Craig
Jun 17, 2018, 5:39:20 AM6/17/18
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Fed2 Star
Earthdate June 17, 2018
[This is a subscription mailing list. Details about how to stop
receiving it are at the foot of the email.]
For a fancy formatted version go the Fed2 Star website:
http://www.ibgames.net/fednews/current/index.html
Official News part two
REAL LIFE NEWS: THE DAYS ARE GETTING LONGER
by Hazed
The Earth’s rotation is slowing down which means the days are getting
longer. But don’t start planning what to do with the extra time, because
it’s happening too slowly to notice – just 1/75,000th of a second is
added to the day’s length each year.
Still, looking back a billion years or thereabouts, the day was five
hours and fifteen minutes shorter than it is now. This was well before
complex life spread around the planet, so there was nobody around to
experience these much shorter days.
Scientists figured this out using a combination of astronomical theory
and geochemical signatures buried in ancient rocks.
The reason for the change in day length is that the moon is slowly –
very slowly – moving away from the Earth. In the past 1.4 billion years
it’s drifted about 44,000km further out. Over the next billion or so
years it’s going to move even further away, until eventually it will
reach a stable distance, at which point it will only be visible from one
half of the Earth.
Source:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/jun/04/the-days-are-getting-longer-but-very-very-slowly
REAL LIFE NEWS: SEE, I TOLD YOU EXERCISE WAS BAD FOR YOU!
by Hazed
Vigorous physical exercise has been linked to an increased risk of
developing ALS – and nobody knows why.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as motor neurone disease or
Lou Gehrig’s disease, is the condition that affected the late Stephen
Hawking. Scientists don’t know much about what causes the fatal disease,
but now it seems that intense physical activity may be a risk factor to
be aware of.
Neurologist Leonard van den Berg from the University Medical Centre
Utrecht in the Netherlands said, “We observed a linear association,
which means that the risk appeared to increase with each increase in
exercise level.”
His team investigated the lifestyles of over 1,500 adults who had been
diagnosed with ALS in Ireland, Italy and the Netherlands. Their data
included information on their physical activity levels over their
lifetime, as well as their gender, vocational attainment, employment
history, smoking habits and alcohol intake.
The data from these ALS patients was compared with a control group of
almost 3,000 healthy participants whose demographics were matched as
closely as possible to the ALS participants.
When all the other factors were accounted for, physical activity levels
stood out as a statistically significant risk factor affecting people’s
likelihood of developing the disease. The average heightened risk for
physical activity in leisure time was 7 percent, and 6 percent for
occupational physical activity, with the association being most evident
in the Irish and Italian cohorts.
The researchers caution that this data relied on participants’
self-reporting and powers of memory, so we can’t assume a direct cause –
remember that correlation does not equal causation. However, this
definitely warrants further investigation.
Source:
https://www.sciencealert.com/vigorous-physical-activity-linked-to-increased-risk-of-developing-als-amyotrophic-lateral-sclerosis-mnd
ROBOT OF THE WEEK: SOMETHING FISHY
by Hazed
MIT researchers have built a robot fish. The fishy droid will allow
scientists to spy on their fleshy fishy brethren and see things humans
normally don’t see, because the fish normally hide when they see divers
with bulky underwater cameras.
The underwater fish mimics the appearance and swimming behaviour of a
fish. It’s 47cm long and weighs 1.6kg, and it’s been given the name
SoFi, short for Soft Robotic Fish. The source link below has a diagram
showing how it’s been put together.
It will be controlled by a diver who will be able to stay in the
background, far enough away not to alarm the real fish.
The researchers spent three days off the coast of Fiji testing SoFi
(it’s a hard job, but somebody’s got to do it). The robot fish spent 240
minutes exploring a coral reef.
This is the first time a robot fish has swum in the sea, untethered, for
a prolonged period. Its success could herald a swarm of fishy droids
teeming through the oceans.
Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/03/22/finding_robo/
PICTURE OF THE WEEK: SOLAR ECLIPSE CORONA
by Hazed
A picture of the total eclipse last August shows one of the most
detailed depictions of the sun’s corona ever seen. The images were taken
in Oregon and have been published after a whole lot of digital processing.
See the corona picture here: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap180430.html
Earthdate June 17, 2018
[This is a subscription mailing list. Details about how to stop
receiving it are at the foot of the email.]
For a fancy formatted version go the Fed2 Star website:
http://www.ibgames.net/fednews/current/index.html
Official News part two
REAL LIFE NEWS: THE DAYS ARE GETTING LONGER
by Hazed
The Earth’s rotation is slowing down which means the days are getting
longer. But don’t start planning what to do with the extra time, because
it’s happening too slowly to notice – just 1/75,000th of a second is
added to the day’s length each year.
Still, looking back a billion years or thereabouts, the day was five
hours and fifteen minutes shorter than it is now. This was well before
complex life spread around the planet, so there was nobody around to
experience these much shorter days.
Scientists figured this out using a combination of astronomical theory
and geochemical signatures buried in ancient rocks.
The reason for the change in day length is that the moon is slowly –
very slowly – moving away from the Earth. In the past 1.4 billion years
it’s drifted about 44,000km further out. Over the next billion or so
years it’s going to move even further away, until eventually it will
reach a stable distance, at which point it will only be visible from one
half of the Earth.
Source:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/jun/04/the-days-are-getting-longer-but-very-very-slowly
REAL LIFE NEWS: SEE, I TOLD YOU EXERCISE WAS BAD FOR YOU!
by Hazed
Vigorous physical exercise has been linked to an increased risk of
developing ALS – and nobody knows why.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as motor neurone disease or
Lou Gehrig’s disease, is the condition that affected the late Stephen
Hawking. Scientists don’t know much about what causes the fatal disease,
but now it seems that intense physical activity may be a risk factor to
be aware of.
Neurologist Leonard van den Berg from the University Medical Centre
Utrecht in the Netherlands said, “We observed a linear association,
which means that the risk appeared to increase with each increase in
exercise level.”
His team investigated the lifestyles of over 1,500 adults who had been
diagnosed with ALS in Ireland, Italy and the Netherlands. Their data
included information on their physical activity levels over their
lifetime, as well as their gender, vocational attainment, employment
history, smoking habits and alcohol intake.
The data from these ALS patients was compared with a control group of
almost 3,000 healthy participants whose demographics were matched as
closely as possible to the ALS participants.
When all the other factors were accounted for, physical activity levels
stood out as a statistically significant risk factor affecting people’s
likelihood of developing the disease. The average heightened risk for
physical activity in leisure time was 7 percent, and 6 percent for
occupational physical activity, with the association being most evident
in the Irish and Italian cohorts.
The researchers caution that this data relied on participants’
self-reporting and powers of memory, so we can’t assume a direct cause –
remember that correlation does not equal causation. However, this
definitely warrants further investigation.
Source:
https://www.sciencealert.com/vigorous-physical-activity-linked-to-increased-risk-of-developing-als-amyotrophic-lateral-sclerosis-mnd
ROBOT OF THE WEEK: SOMETHING FISHY
by Hazed
MIT researchers have built a robot fish. The fishy droid will allow
scientists to spy on their fleshy fishy brethren and see things humans
normally don’t see, because the fish normally hide when they see divers
with bulky underwater cameras.
The underwater fish mimics the appearance and swimming behaviour of a
fish. It’s 47cm long and weighs 1.6kg, and it’s been given the name
SoFi, short for Soft Robotic Fish. The source link below has a diagram
showing how it’s been put together.
It will be controlled by a diver who will be able to stay in the
background, far enough away not to alarm the real fish.
The researchers spent three days off the coast of Fiji testing SoFi
(it’s a hard job, but somebody’s got to do it). The robot fish spent 240
minutes exploring a coral reef.
This is the first time a robot fish has swum in the sea, untethered, for
a prolonged period. Its success could herald a swarm of fishy droids
teeming through the oceans.
Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/03/22/finding_robo/
PICTURE OF THE WEEK: SOLAR ECLIPSE CORONA
by Hazed
A picture of the total eclipse last August shows one of the most
detailed depictions of the sun’s corona ever seen. The images were taken
in Oregon and have been published after a whole lot of digital processing.
See the corona picture here: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap180430.html
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