Sabine Hossenfelder admits that “The problem has kept her up at night for decades, she says, and it appears we are no closer to an answer”
Just For Fun
Well some life forms, it turns out, benefited from the COVID-19 pandemic
This is a cougar on Vancouver Island off the coast of North America, where your UD news is produced. Please also enjoy Snagglepuss, a North American cougar (animated cartoon) with all the virtues (sorry, faults) of a feline.
Someone finally got around to classifying science papers correctly
And of course it had to be XKCD. Here’s that page (don’t miss the rest)!
Mini VW Beetle spotted in Cleveland Museum of Natural History’s beetle collection
Here. A suitable final resting place, for sure.
Researchers: Radioactive snowflakes will destroy stars!
A pair of researchers with Indiana University and Illinois University, respectively, has developed a theory that suggests crystalizing uranium “snowflakes” deep inside white dwarfs could instigate an explosion large enough to destroy the star. (No, it doesn’t matter much but it’s Saturday night.)
The Bee stings again: 7 ways Christianity ruined science
Babylon Bee: The scientific method was created by a devout Christian, which burdens scientists with restrictive fundamentalist rules: The scientific method limits our science. We’re tired of fundamentalist Christians always imposing strict rules. Live a little, for goodness sake!
Fun: The Babylon Bee’s guide to being Woke
If you are Woke, this is Not Fun.
Fun: The new bad is “species-ist” language
Will it become a crime to use words like “catty” or names like “Gordon Gecko”?
Fun: Unclear how these eagle ray pups came to exist…
But there are theories.
At New Scientist: Specialized wings make house flies harder to swat
So much intelligence in nature. Why couldn’t some of it be organized to make them buzz off?
Our science betters tackle COVID-19 the only way they know how
Just stop people from talking
Fun: Dinesh D’Souza imagines himself as Ditchard Rawkins
Readers, is this fair? If so, can he also do Daniel Dennett?
The monolith has disappeared…
The CORRECT explanation, of course, is that it lost the battle for survival of the fittest to fitter competitors and will not contribute, starting from non-life, to the origin of a new type of life via abiogenesis. But apparently, a new monolith has evolved and then suddenly gone extinct in Romania. Nature red in tooth and claw, and all that…
Asked at Sapiens: Did Processed Foods Make Us Human?
Well, at least the guy isn’t arguing that processed foods make us inhuman or that turkey dinners kill people. Instead, he tried living off the land in a really big way: (including climbing a tree to eat raw eland marrow). Such experiences led him to come up with an interesting theory of human origins.
Apocalypse Alley: The asteroid Apophis 2068
Dvorsky: Should Apophis crash into Earth, it would unleash the equivalent of 1,150 megatons of TNT, in an event 3,800 times more powerful than the atomic bomb detonated over Hiroshima.