“Zuul’s back and flanks are covered in various spikes and bony structures called osteoderms. Just as [Dr. Victoria] Arbour predicted, there is evidence of broken and injured osteoderms on both sides of the flanks, some of which appear to have healed.”
“[T]he modeling estimated that COVID-19 vaccination [in the United States] prevented 3.25 million deaths…. Averted hospitalizations were estimated at 18.6 million…. For infections, the model estimated a dodge of 119.85 million.”
“[T]here’s the uncomfortable fact that producing the 2 megajoules of laser power that started the fusion reaction took about 300 megajoules of grid power, so the overall process is nowhere near the break-even point. … [W]e’re still left with major questions about whether laser-driven fusion can be optimized enough to be useful.”
“Matching the density of the two planets produces a model that has a bit over 10 percent of the planet’s mass composed of water. This, however, means that about half the planet’s volume is water. … Due to the planet’s mass, the pressure of the atmosphere would be immense and could create a layer of supercritical water between the atmosphere and the ocean.”
“[T]he coffee it makes is good. … That grown in South Sudan had ‘notes of raspberry coulis, figs, plums, and milk chocolate.’ It has comparable caffeine levels to Arabica, so can be an appropriate substitute as growing conditions for Arabica continue to decline.”
“Wolves with antibodies against [Toxoplasma gondii] were significantly more likely to disperse (leave their packs and set out on their own) and to become pack leaders. Pursuing both of these courses of action constitutes aggressive and risky wolf behavior.”
“Over time, it became a master at [Diplomacy], reportedly achieving ‘more than double the average score’ of human players and ranking in the top 10 percent of people who played more than one game.”
(Andy Baio adds “building extremely persuasive AIs that are more effective negotiators than humans, what could go wrong”.)
“Police can use Fog Reveal to geofence entire buildings or street blocks—like the area surrounding an abortion clinic—and get information on devices used within and surrounding those buildings to identify suspects. … [A]bortion data surveillance via Fog Reveal could seemingly be conducted without warrants and without any legal oversight.”
“[A] team of European researchers decided to model an event that should be relatively uncommon: the two black holes didn’t start out in a mutual orbit but happened to pass close enough to gravitationally latch onto each other. … The models that produced a chirp that best matched the GW190521 signal saw a single pass that drew the black holes closer, followed by a single rapid curve into the collision.”
“[O]ctopuses can alter the coloration of their skin, with darker colors typically being indicative of aggression. The authors found that octopuses with dark coloration threw debris more forcefully and were more likely to hit another octopus.”
“[T]he earliest image indicates that it was roughly 100,000 Kelvin, which suggests we were looking at it just six hours after it exploded. The latest lensed image shows that the debris had already cooled to 10,000 K over the eight days between the two different images.”
“Translated, the inscription reads, ‘May this tusk root out the lice of the hair and the beard.’ … This purpose was confirmed when the authors searched for evidence of head lice on the comb under a microscope and found some remains on the second tooth, still in the nymph stage of development.”
(See also the discussion at Language Hat.)
“Over the next 1,500 years, during especially hot summers, the remains and artifacts were partially exposed, which explains the deterioration of the most exposed parts of the body and additional damage to the artifacts. Eventually, around 3,800 years ago, snow and ice finally sealed off the gully until the discovery of the mummified remains in 1991.”
(Ötzi was a recurring interest of my old @sben_links account on Twitter, the predecessor to this microblog. If I had completed my long walk in 2017, I would have passed through the next valley east from where he was found, and would have certainly stopped by his museum when the trail passed through Bolzano.)
“Here, rare earth extraction cleared 90 percent efficiency, taking 67 hours to get there. By contrast, leaching didn’t max out until 130 hours after extraction started, and its maximum efficiency was only 60 percent. Again, the extraction that used electricity had fewer contaminating metals.”
“The cities that had a US embassy that set up one of these monitors and tweeted out air-quality data saw a decrease of PM2.5 particulates to the tune of 2 to 4 micrograms per cubic meter—compared to their air quality before getting the monitor and to other similar cities that do not have a monitor.”