Sabine

These scientists got sued for doing their job

[This is a transcript with links to references.]

Truth can be painful, but truth can’t be sued. So sometimes, people who’ve been hurt by truth will try to sue those who dug up the truth. This doesn’t only affect journalists, who often have legal backup from their employer, but increasingly often also scientists, who usually have no legal support. This worries me considerably. What are scientists being sued for, why is it happening, and what can be done about it? That’s what we�...

New experiment finds weird atomic nucleus with dumbbell shape

 [This is a transcript with links to references.]

Image an atomic nucleus. What does it look like? Is it round, like, a ball? Yeah, that’s what I used to think they look like. But this group of researchers from China has found one that has the shape of a dumbbell.

Atomic nuclei are made up of protons and neutrons, and they carry the big bulk of the mass of atoms. The...

Content changes, a brief explanation

I've gotten a lot of question about the recent content changes on the YouTube channel, with the move from the weekly news to daily news.

The issue I have, in a nutshell, is the following. I see in my comments, here and elsewhere, that you are asking both for reactions on recent news and for in-depth coverage of more general questions. I am trying to address both. So, we have short, short-notice reactions that we can produce within a week. And then we have longer, in-depth coverage that...

Carbon Capture, Lithium, & Smaller MRIs

UAE Launches Carbon Capture Plant

The ADNOC carbon capture plant. Image Credit: ADNOC.

The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) has launched a carbon capture plant in the remote mountains of the United Arab Emirates. The step is part of a controver...

Move over LHC: This particle accelerator is just 10 cm long

 [This is a transcript with links to references.]

You’ve probably heard that particle physicists would really, really like to have a new particle collider, one that can reach even higher energies that the Large Hadron Collider, the currently most powerful particle accelerator in the world. And this new breakthrough which I just read about the other day might make their dream come true.

The biggest problem with particle colliders is that they’re big, because th...

This experiment will measure nothing, but very precisely

 [This is a transcript with links to references.]

The physics paper that I’m most excited about this week is about an experiment that will measure nothing. But not any nothing, a very specific nothing, that’s the vacuum of quantum electrodynamics.

You might think that if you remove all the particles from within a container, then the only thing that’s left inside is space. But that isn’t so. It’s because particles in quantum physics are like waves atop of ...

The Best Sleep Advice - According to Science

[This is a transcript with links to references.]

You’ve all heard that sleeping problems are called “imsomina” but have you heard of “orthosomina”? “Ortho” is the Greek word for straight or correct, and ‘somnia’ means sleep. The term “orthosomina” was coined a few years ago by a group of sleep researchers from Chicago. It’s when people worry about not getting th...

Ozone Layer Trouble, One Moon-Crater Too Many, & the Hubble Tension Bites Back

Ozone Layer Trouble

Left: Ozone layer illustration. Right: NASA images a hole in the Ozone layer.

A group of scientists in New Zealand says that the ozone layer is not recovering as expected. According to their recent study, the problem is being aggr...

Science News Nov 29

 [This is a transcript with links to references.]

Welcome everyone to this week’s science news. Today we’ll talk about the leading theories for why Sam Altman got fired from OpenAI, cosmic rays with HUGE energies, evidence of a an overdue supervolcano eruption near Italy, an exoplanet on which it rains sand, Microsoft’s first AI-chip, why spiral galaxies like the Milky Way are so rare, how climate engineering could save the Antarctic, cannibalistic stars, and of course the t...

Long COVID is real, but may be overestimated

[This is a transcript with links to references.]

Remember COVID? It’s over, right? Except for some people it isn’t over, and maybe it never will be. Estimates say that as much as one in 10 people who had COVID were still affected more than 3 months later. They got long COVID.

But what’s long COVID? What might cause it, how common is it, and what should you do if you think you’re affected? That’s what we’ll talk about today.

First things first, what’s...

6G, Unstickable Glue, & Blinking Masterminds

Move Over 5G, 6G is Arriving Soon

Image: Department of Defense

The U.S. government is already planning the transition to the 6th generation of mobile networks, 6G. Its predecessor, 5G, is currently being rolled out all over the world. 6G is supposed to brin...

Science News Nov 21

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Welcome everyone to yet another exciting week of science news. Today we’ll talk about why Mars glows green, an amazingly cool way to make magnets hover, a study which found that a supposed piece of alien tech isn’t alien tech, surprising absolutely no one, plans to use the entire moon as a gravitational wave detector, progress with D-wave’s quantum computer, why Saturn’s rings will temporarily become invisible, wire...

Is Science Dying?

[This is a transcript of the video.]

Is science coming to an end? I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. This may sound like old Sabine has finally gone completely crazy. Fair enough. But I believe my worries aren’t quite as crazy as they sound. Though I guess that’s exactly what a crazy person would say, wouldn’t they.

Crazy or not, I think it’s worth discussing: Why might science end, and is it happening? That’s what we’ll talk about today.

Super-Misconduct, Cloud Seeding, & What's Up With ASMR

A Super-Misconductor?

The supposed superconductor. Image: University of Rochester.

Nature – the world’s most read, respected, and prestigious science journal – has retracted yet another paper about the supposed discovery of a high-tempera...

Science News Nov 15

 [This is a transcript with links to references.]

Welcome everyone to this week’s science news. Today we have an update on the biggest astrophysics drama of the year, that’s an observation which seems to be ruling out the most popular alternative to dark matter. Then we have a group of geologists who claim that parts of the moon are stuck in the mantle of earth, a new and quite plausible explanation for the sudden dimming and brightening of the star Betelgeuse, plans f...

I think net zero plans are bonkers, here's why

[This is a transcript with links to references.]

Net Zero. Everyone is talking about Net Zero, everywhere, all at once. But Net Zero what? What does this even mean? Is it a reasonable goal? How far are we on the way? And do we have any chance of reaching it? That’s what we’ll talk about today.

First things first, what do we mean by net zero? Until recently the term had no official definition2023-11-11 13:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post

A Bold Bird, Cotton on the Moon, & Super-Silk

Bold Bird Survives Five Rounds with Typhoon Faxai 

Streaked Shearwater Seabird, Japan. Source: lin-sun-fong/iNaturalist/ 

A graduate student biologist at Tohoku University in Japan who fitted a streaked shearwater seabird with a tracking ...

Science News Nov 7 2023

[This is a transcript with links to references.]

Welcome everyone to this week’s science news! This week we have new evidence that the dinosaurs were killed by the aftermath of an asteroid impact, then we have a look at the biggest universe simulation ever, talk about a lost continent that’s been found, roman ruins in spy footage, a new record for a single photon camera, an asteroid that might contain chemical elements which are not in the periodic table, super lightning bo...

Physicist reacts to quantum memes

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I know I said I wouldn’t do reaction videos. But, ah, I keep seeing these terrible memes about quantum mechanics. It’s quite possible that you don’t want to know what I think about them, but I’ll tell you anyway. In this totally unfunny video, I’ll rate the 10 most popular quantum memes. Are they any good? That’s what we’ll talk about today.

As usual, I’ve been overthinking this, so I’ll give each meme three ratings and will place...

Peak Oil, Augmented Forests, & Energy from Feathers

Peak Oil is Here Again

IEA 2023 projection for global oil demand in million barrels per day

According to the International Energy Agency, we are on track to see fossil fuel use peak before 2030. In their recent World Energy Outlook, they say that clean ...

Science News Nov 01

[This is a transcript with links to references.]

Welcome everyone! Science never rests and this week we have quite a selection of news. It looks like the sun’s magnetic field will flip earlier than expected, the moon is 40 million years older than anyone thought, a group of geologists have found that Earth’s core is leaking, we’ll have a look at the tiniest particle accelerator ever, why airline pricing is such a mess, hear what the International energy agency has to say ...

Ozempic and Wegovy: All You Need To Know

[This is a transcript with links to references.]

In 2021, the US Food and Drug Administration approved wegovy a drug with the active ingredient semaglutide that helps people lose weight. In contrast to pretty much all previous weight-loss drugs, this one actually works. And it’s taken the world by storm.

According to Komodo Health, the number of prescriptions for this and similar drugs for weight-loss purposes has increased 2023-10-28 12:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post

Earthquakes, Marsquakes, & Wine vs Beer

Earthquake Warnings from Unused Seafloor Cables

(a) Map of detected earthquakes (b) Data used to detect the quakes. Image: Jiuxun Yin et al., GeoScienceWorld (2023)

Researchers at Caltech have used 50 km of existing submarine optical fibre cable betw...

Science News Oct 24

[This is a transcript with links to references.]

Welcome everyone to this week’s science news. Today we’ll talk about why coin flips are not fifty-fifty, starquakes, the most powerful solar storm ever, space debris, IBM’s new brain-inspired computer chip, an exoplanet collision, a new tectonic plate, projections for AI power consumption, and of course the telephone will ring.

A coin flip is fifty-fifty, right? Not quite. 2023-10-24 16:30:01 +0000 UTC View Post

How does quantum mechanics give rise to parallel universes?

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Physics is fascinating because, well, because of many reasons of course, not least that it works. But one reason is certainly that it gives a touch of plausibility to ideas that otherwise seem like pure fiction, strange objects that you think shouldn’t exist: Wormholes, invisibility cloaks, or birds.  

But the physics idea that has captured imagination the most are probably parallel universes. The “Many Worlds” interpretation of quantu...

Spongebob 2.0, Asteroid Dust, & Ping Pong Balls

This Is What Happens When You Let an AI Design a Robot

Image: Matthews et al., PNAS ( 2023)

Researchers at Northwestern University asked an artificial intelligence (AI) to design a robot that could walk across land. The result is not exactly what you’...

Science News Oct 17

[This is a transcript with links to references.]

Welcome everyone to this week’s science news. This week we’ll talk about three new laws of nature, one of which supposedly shows that we live in a computer simulation. We’ll have a first look at intergalactic filaments, talk about building roads on the moon, whether chatbots understand what they chat about, a new type of qubit with a low error rate, sound waves in crystals, how to deflect lasers with nothing but air, dunes ...

Is time-travel possible?

[This is a transcript with links to references.]

We just talked about time travel next month, but it’s been a while, so let’s give this a closer look. What does physics say about time travel? Is MIT really building a time machine to find dark matter. Is time travel possible? That’s what we’ll talk about today.

2023-10-14 12:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post

Space Littering, Exascale Computing, & Einstein’s Tea Leaves

Dish Gets Served with a Hefty Fine for Space Littering

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has fined Dish, a satellite TV company, $150,000 for violating space safety regulations. Due to technical problems, the company had to leave its EchoStar-7 satellite i...

Science News October 10

 [This is a transcript with links to references]

Welcome everyone to this week’s science news. Today we’ll talk about a new candidate for a cosmic string, the mysterious shrinking of planet Mercury, a nuclear clock, the first quantum engine, a simulator for human diseases, whether we can find new physics with spinning black holes, AI that wants to help find aliens, how to compute with photons, and of course, the telephone will ring.

2023-10-10 17:23:57 +0000 UTC View Post