Sabine

Science News Nov 30

[This is a transcript with references]

Welcome everyone to this week’s science news! Today we’ll talk about Trouble at ITER, robots that build robots, air pollution, AI that classifies supernovae, a small asteroid that hit Canada, Super GPS, a new supercomputer simulation of the sun, a quantum thermometer. And of course, the telephone will ring.

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, ITER, for short, 2022-11-30 16:00:10 +0000 UTC View Post

Nuclear Waste: What Do We Do With it?

[This is a transcript with links.]

Nuclear power used to be a conversation stopper. Luckily, we now all agree that it’s the fastest, safest, and most reliable way to get off fossil fuels. If it wasn’t for this little issue with the radioactive waste. Do you get superpowers if you roll around in it? If you came here to answer that question, you’ve got the wrong channel. But we’ll talk about the next best thing to superpowers: numbers. How much nuclear waste is there, how...

The Searches For Dark Matter & A Map Of The Galaxies

Two More Dark Matter Searches Return Empty-Handed

A search for axion-like dark matter particles and another one for fermionic dark matter particles repor...

Science News Nov 23

[This is a transcript with references.]

Welcome to this week’s science news. Today we’ll talk about how to build a radio telescope – on the moon, recent wormhole headlines, the Artemis 1 launch and why it was delayed, quantum microscopes and the status of quantum computing, the first metaverse nation, manta rays, advances in material design, the link between chaos and biodiversity. And of course, the telephone will ring.

2022-11-23 16:00:10 +0000 UTC View Post

Coming up on Nov 26

I like to talk about nuclear power. This isn't new. New is that people actually listen to what I say. The renaissance of nuclear power has pushed forward technology development again, in particular when it comes to dealing with nuclear waste. How much nuclear waste is there, how much of a problem is it, and what can we do with it? On Saturday we'll look into it.

Consciousness and Quantum Mechanics: What's the Link?

[This is a transcript of the video.]

Physicists have debated the role of consciousness in quantum mechanics for more than 100 years. Some podcast episodes will soon reach that length, but I have a dentist appointment in 2 hours, so we’ll have to wrap it up a little more quickly. Why did some physicists like von Neumann and Wigner think that consciousness is necessary to make sense of quantum mechanics, and can consciousness influence the outcome of a quantum experiment? That’s what ...

Coming up on Nov 19

Here's a topic I have meant to talk about for a long time, but didn't quite know how to approach it: what's the relation (if any) between quantum mechanics and consciousness. Things clicked in place when I came across a paper earlier this year by two philosophers who were linking spontaneous collapse models with integrated information theory. Don't worry if you have no idea what that means, I'll explain it on Saturday.

2022-11-17 17:40:56 +0000 UTC View Post

Science News Nov 16

[This is a transcript of the video with references]

Welcome everyone to this week’s science news. Today we’ll talk about mysterious radiation bursts, a superfluid that supposedly recreates the early universe, good news from the Webb telescope, plans to intercept the next interstellar object, why you shouldn’t make things more complicated than necessary, a new device against tick bites, and the good and bad of social media.

Scientists believe that several radiation bursts str...

Why are testosterone levels falling?

Forget war, forget climate change, recessions, pandemics. Today we’ll talk about a real crisis. The decrease of testosterone levels. Just look at all those headlines. There must be something going on. But what? Are testosterone levels really falling? If so, why? And how much of a crisis is it? That’s what we’ll talk about today.

The worry that men are becoming too feminine isn’t new. It’s been in the newspapers since there’ve been newspapers. The blame has, among other thing...

Science News Nov 9

Welcome everyone to this week’s science news. Today we’ll talk about experimental evidence for quantum effects in the brain, the discovery of a potentially dangerous asteroid, a new method to track turbulence in plasma, China’s scientific Rise and the British Space Program, viruses on microplastics, how lasers can trick an autonomous vehicle into running someone over, the link between intelligence and self-control – in jay, and a 15th century house excavated in Berlin. And of course t...

Coming up on Nov 12

The sale of testosterone supplements is booming. Men seem to be popping the stuff like sugar pills. Headlines are screaming that testosterone levels are declining. How much of this is based on science? And should you tan your scrotum? On Saturday, we sort it out.

Quantum Winter Is Coming

Quantum technology current attracts a lot of attention and money, which might explain why they’re missing on my end. But it’s not just governments who think quantum everything is where your taxes should go, business investors and companies are willing to putting in big money, too. This has had a dramatic impact on quantum physics research in the past decade. It’s also created a lot of hype, especially around quantum computing. But if so much of quantum computing is hype then why are com...

Coming up on Nov 5

Physicists heavily pin their hopes on quantum technologies as a way of demonstrating that foundational work in their field is still relevant for societal progress. Unfortunately, their unwillingness to clarify how limited the potential of some of those technologies is has resulted in the formation of a classical investment bubble. On Saturday I talk about what the problem is and what's likely going to happen when the bubble bursts.

2022-11-03 13:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post

Science News Nov 2

Welcome everyone to this week’s science News. Today we’ll talk about space junk, the carbon footprint of a Higgs Boson, more evidence against dark matter, plans for a nuclear fusion plant in California, a new data transmission record, what Greenpeace has to say about plastic recycling, and whether cats understand you.

The International Space Station had to adjust course to avoid a cloud of space junk last Monday in an incident 2022-11-02 15:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post

What Do Longtermists Want?

Have you ever put away a bag of chips because they say it isn’t healthy? That makes sense. Have you ever put away a bag of chips because you want to increase your chances of having more children so we can populate the entire galaxy in a billion years? That makes… That makes you a longtermist. Longtermism is a currently popular philosophy among rich people like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Jaan Tallinn. What do they believe and how crazy is it? That’s what we’ll talk about today.

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Science News Oct 26

Welcome everyone to this week’s Science News. Today we’ll talk about how life on Mars might have caused its own extinction, how to find life on Earth, a new paper about the Hubble tension, stranded whales, researchers who bioengineered a more deadly COVID strain, or maybe didn’t, how surviving the middle age might have contributed to auto-immune disorders, the world’s largest digital camera, the health benefits of sleeping, and whether smiling really makes you happy.

Scientists ...

Coming Up On Oct 29

In the past couple of years headlines have been popping up about "longtermists" that worry about human extinction and think we should focus more about the future expansion of human civilization than about the present. What do those longtermists want and why? On Saturday we'll look into it.

What If the Effect Comes Before the Cause?

[This is a transcript of the video]

The cause comes before the effect. And I’m glad it does because it’d be awkward if my emails arrived before I’d written them. If that ever happens, it’ll be a case of “retrocausality.” What does that mean? What’s it got to do with quantum mechanics and what is the “transactional interpretation”? That’s what we’ll talk about today.

Causality is a relation between events in space and time, so I’ll be using space-t...

Coming up on Oct 22

It's been a few weeks that we've talked about quantum mechanics... So on Saturday we'll talk about a topic that's been on my mind for a few years, the question whether quantum mechanics is "retrocausal" and requires causes to go back in time. In particular we'll talk about Cramer's transactional interpretation and how that works.

Science News October 19

[This is a transcript of the video.]

Welcome everyone to this week’s science news. Today we’ll talk about the Quantum Internet Alliance, wormholes in the New York Times, a black hole that doesn’t like its meal, energy worries at CERN, species loss, and the robot which holds the world record for running 100 meters.

2022-10-19 15:00:09 +0000 UTC View Post

Why are we getting fatter?

[This is a transcript of the video.]

Today I want to talk about personal energy storage. I don’t mean that drawer we all have that’s full of batteries in the wrong size, I mean our expanding waistlines that store energy in form of fat. What are the main causes of obesity, how much of a problem is it, and what are you to make of the recent claims that obesity is caused by plastic? That’s what we’ll talk about today.

Obesity is common and becoming more common, so co...

Science News October 12

[This is the transcript of the video.]

Welcome everyone to this week’s science news that Brian Keating suggested I call the Sabinews, but I’ll resist. Today we’ll talk about what went wrong with spooky action in the headlines, ads in the nightsky, wormholes in plastic, pollution in the brains of unborn babies, how rising temperatures change the colour of lakes, the supercontinent ...

Coming up on Oct 15

It happens frequently that I come across some headline on recent research and, as I try to figure out what to make of it, fall down a rabbit hole that leads to everything everybody else has ever said about this and related topics. The video that's coming up on Saturday came about this way. I was trying to figure out whether plastic can possibly be the cause of the obesity epidemic, as recent headlines claimed. And ended up doing a video on what we know about the causes of obesity to begin wit...

Cold Fusion is Back (there's just one problem)

[This is a transcript of the video.]

Cold fusion could save the world. It’d be a basically unlimited, clean, source of energy. It sounds great. There’s just one problem: it’s not working. Indeed, most physicists think it can’t work even in theory. And yet, the research is making a comeback. So, what’s going on? What do we know about cold fusion? Is it the real deal, or is it pseudoscience? What’s cold fusion to begin with? That’s what we’ll talk about today.
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The First Ever Episode of Science News Without the Gobbledygook

One thing I miss about the blogging days is the ability to comment on current events short notice. It's much harder with video than in writing. This is why on my YouTube channel, we now have a weekly Science News episode. I hope that this will make it easier to have a discussion about recent events! 

Coming up on Oct 8

Coming up on Saturday is a video I've been working on for a long time, low energy nuclear reactions aka cold fusion, reborn. There is much more to say about it than you'd think. Already one of my personal favorites. 

Can we make flying "green"?

“Flight shaming” is a social movement that originated in Sweden a few years ago. Its aim is to discourage people from flying because it’s bad for the environment. But let’s be honest, we’re not going to give up flying just because some Swedes think we should. I mean, we already shop at IKEA, isn’t that Swedish enough?

But seriously, maybe the flight shamers have a point. If aliens come to visit us one day, how are we supposed to explain this mess? Maybe we should indeed try...

Coming up on October 1

Climate change has a side-effect that makes it very interesting, which is that it dramatically accelerates technological progress in some areas. Changes that would ordinarily have taken a hundred years now might come to pass within a decade. On Saturday we look at what's happening in the aviation industry and what plans they have to decrease their carbon footprint. 

What is "Nothing"?

Like most videos on YouTube, this is a video about nothing. But we’re a science channel, so we’ll talk about nine levels of nothing. What are the nine levels of nothing? Can you really make a universe from them? And if someone asks you why there is something rather than nothing, what’s a good answer? That’s what we will talk about today.

First things first, what do we mean by “nothing”? A first attempt to define nothing is to look at how we use the word in everyday languag...

Coming up on September 24

So on Saturday we will talk about Nothing. That's Nothing with a capital N which you might say is quite something. Indeed I managed to talk about Nothing for 15 minutes. More seriously (but not too much) we'll talk about the 9 levels of Nothing and why there is something rather than Nothing, why it matters whether holes in cheese exist, and what to do if someone wants "Nothing" for their birthday. I had a lot of fun with this video and I hope you'll enjoy it too!

2022-09-21 06:33:46 +0000 UTC View Post