Weird & Interesting science

[Bob Schroeck]

Scientists discover a new snake and name it after Salazar Slytherin

[Norgarth]

New fossils rewrite the story of dinosaurs and change the appearance of Spinosaurus
https://phys.org/news/2020-04-fossils-re...W2yyoXLymM

EDIT:
a different prehistoric critter, an early (and strange) mammal from the dinosaur age.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/craz...oTbjJf35LU

[Norgarth]

this past March, a meteor struck Nigeria

[Labster]

Microbe makes mosquitoes completely immune to malaria

[classicdrogn]

Well that's some good news at least. Malaria may be much harder to spread sicne it needs bloodstream access to transfer, but it's killed a lot of people over the years too.

[hazard]

No, ebola is hard to spread, because it needs direct fluid contact and doesn't keep well outside the body. It's terrifyingly lethal, but it needs direct fluid contact. Isolation and letting the afflicted die before burning the bodies in full protective gear is a valid answer to an ebola outbreak, it's just one that isn't used because that's not how humans generally think of handling another's suffering.

Malaria? Malaria is hard to spread from human to human, but the fact that it has a taxi service to cover all its problems makes it a fairly effective spreader. You always have to deal with the vector, but malaria's vector is harder to deal with.

[classicdrogn]

Harder to spread than COVID-19, I meant.

[hazard]

It's kind of difficult to have a disease that's easier to spread than COVID-19. You are right that having a counter to the spread of malaria beyond treatment of the disease is a tremendous benefit to fighting it though. We've been using pesticides for that, but those have limits in their effectiveness.

[Norgarth]

new Black hole discovered, the closest yet found to Earth
https://www.space.com/closest-black-hole...overy.html

[robkelk]

Pesky carbon ions - maybe the Moon didn't form from a collision between Earth and "Theia" after all.

[Labster]

^ That's really going to mess up my Sailor Moon/Doctor Who crossover fic should I ever get around to writing it.

[Norgarth]

[Norgarth]

Scientists discover 2m long carnivorous worm

[classicdrogn]

Aw, it's just a fossil. I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to give you a demerit demerit for clickbait.

[Bob Schroeck]

We may have spotted a parallel universe going backwards in time

(EDIT: new URL where you don't have to subscribe to get full story)

[Mamorien]

We may have spotted a parallel universe going backwards in time

(EDIT: new URL where you don't have to subscribe to get full story)

But only SubGenii and the SubGenius-adjacent know that this backwards universe ("Antiland") will interact with our own on August 21, 2178 (the "Time Intersection" or "Omicron Epsilon" spoken of in The Book of the SubGenius, wherein it is sometimes referred to as "The Rupture").

[robkelk]

Climate change turning Antarctica's snow green

[Labster]

Great failures in science edition:

Daryl Bem Proved ESP Is Real This led to another widely-cited paper (4575 citations according to Google!), which proved experimentally that listening to The Beatles' "When I'm Sixty-Four" caused the age of study participants to decrease.

Physicist endorses the notion that scientists had no special claim to scientific knowledge. 'Just as postmodern theory revealed that so-called facts about the physical world were mere social or political constructs, he wrote, quantum gravity undermined the concept of existence itself, making way for a "liberatory science" and "emancipatory mathematics." ' Don't worry, this is an article about the paper.

The Rise and Fall of Polywater. Did you know that water polymerizes? Is this stuff as dangerous as ice-nine? Has the best Sherman and Peabody ending pun I've ever seen in a science article.

[Bob Schroeck]

Never heard of Bem or his experiments -- or their effects. That's something I'm going to have to look into more.

I've been familiar with the Sokal Hoax for years, so that one's no real surprise.

And oh god, I haven't heard the term "polywater" since I was in high school. I remember that Edmund Scientific used to sell something that was supposed to "catalyze" water into polywater, but I never actually bought any. I also remember the beginning of its debunking, when people were pointing out that it was just water with certain "impurities", but I don't remember the details.

[Labster]

I didn't know about Bem himself, but the replication crisis has hit the social sciences like a magnitude 9 earthquake.  Here is this guy who says, "I have proven the impossible with standard, even boring, methodology", and says to everyone else, "Please, replicate my results!"  And a decade later, this is still going on, turning brother against brother, with some field-fundamental results being disproven in replication.  It's even spread a little bit outside social sciences, into the physical and biological sciences.

The problems summarize to:
* p-hacking: choosing your findings after the fact of the experiment to find an effect that looks statistically significant.  Reminder that if you measure 20 random things, most likely one of them is above the 95% confidence level, because maths.  Adding more data/subjects, and then stopping once you have the result you want also qualifies.
* no replication: there's no funding to replicate other people's results.  Boring!  It all goes to novel science.  And no one gets publication or social credit for replication.  So in theory science is self-correcting but most of the time no one bothers to do this step.
* data not shared: This is my data from my grant dollars, why should I let you make discoveries with it?  Especially ones that discredit me!  Special award goes to those making up their data, but this can also cover up honest mistakes made by researchers as well.  Thankfully this is the easiest one to solve; journals, grant agencies, and universities have all made policies to address this.

[Norgarth]

Magnetic north has been acting strange but we may have an explanation 


Astronomers find the Wolfe Disk, a galaxy that shouldn't exist 

[classicdrogn]

Astronomers find the Wolfe Disk, a galaxy that shouldn't exist 

Precursor home space found? At least now we know where to send the complaint if Zentreadi or Orkz or Gieger-xenomorphs or Flood or The BEAST show up, I guess. Wouldn't expect a timely response from customer service though.

[Norgarth]

Never before seen black hole collision creates unexpected effects 


Archaeologists uncover 1700 yr old board game 
https://kotaku.com/archaeologists-uncove...lWxGGmoVG0

[robkelk]

All that "missing matter" that caused astronomers to come up with "dark matter" theories? It's not missing.

Yeah, it's The Register quoting Nature, so wait for peer review before tearing up the "dark matter" theories.

[RMH999]

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/...o-kavachi/

Sharkcano - not a movie (...yet). Scientists find sharks living inside an active underwater volcano.