Recent comments in /f/science

DFWPunk t1_jcdb0l7 wrote

Reply to Twitter conspiracy theories during the pandemic involving Bill Gates. The study found what is most concerning is the speed and rapid spread of bot use to unforeseen areas. Researchers are just beginning to get a glimpse of issues and concerns that will result from this technology by Wagamaga

And guess who else benefited greatly from bots on Twitter, then insisted bots were a problem, and that he needed everything he could get on Twitter bots, like how they were detected, right after a report showed how he'd benefited from bots financially to the tune of tens of billions.

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thejml2000 t1_jcda4ry wrote

Reply to comment by morrowwm in Sauropod specimen found in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region may have had the longest neck of any known dinosaur — measuring about 15.1 m, more than the height of the Hollywood sign by marketrent

Apparently, the sign is 45’ or 13.7m tall. Apparently bananas tend to be between 7” and 8” in length, so, if we take 7.5”, that’s 72 bananas high.

Or about 0.9 of an Olympic swimming pool diving board to the bottom (5m deep+10m board height)

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marketrent OP t1_jcd05dz wrote

Reply to Sauropod specimen found in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region may have had the longest neck of any known dinosaur — measuring about 15.1 m, more than the height of the Hollywood sign by marketrent

Findings in title quoted from the linked content^1,2 about research funded by numerous organizations, including the United States National Science Foundation, The Royal Society of London, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

From the linked summary:^1

>Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum was discovered in approximately 162-million-year-old rocks from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of northwest China in 1987 by the China–Canada Dinosaur Project team, for which it was named in 1993.

>Although Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum is known only from a handful of bones from the neck and skull, the research team was able to reconstruct its evolutionary relationships and thus make comparisons to the unusually complete skeletons of its closest relatives.

>This allowed them to conclude that Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum had a neck approximately 15.1 meters long, the longest of any known sauropod.

>Lead author Dr Andrew J. Moore, Stony Brook University palaeontologist, said, ‘All sauropods were big, but jaw-droppingly long necks didn’t evolve just once.

>‘Mamenchisaurids are important because they pushed the limits on how long a neck can be and were the first lineage of sauropods to do so. With a 15-metre-long neck, it looks like Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum might be a record-holder – at least until something longer is discovered.’

ETA:

>The question of how sauropods managed to evolve such long necks and large bodies without collapsing under their own weight has puzzled scientists since their discovery.

>When studying Mamenchisaurus the team were able to use computed-tomography (CT) scanning to reveal that the vertebrae were lightweight and hollow with air spaces comprising about 69–77% of their volume, similar to the lightly built skeletons of birds.

>However, such featherweight skeletons would also be more prone to injury. To combat this Mamenchisaurus had 4-metre-long rod-like neck ribs, bony extensions of the vertebrae that created overlapping bundles of rods on either side of the neck.

>These bundles would have stiffened the neck of Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum, increasing its stability.

^1 New fossil analysis reveals dinosaur with the longest neck of any animal ever, 15 Mar. 2023, https://www.nhm.ac.uk/press-office/press-releases/new-fossil-analysis-reveals-dinosaur-with-the-longest-neck-of-an.html

^2 Andrew J. Moore, Paul M. Barrett, Paul Upchurch, Chun-Chi Liao, Yong Ye, Baoqiao Hao & Xing Xu (2023) Re-assessment of the Late Jurassic eusauropod Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum Russell and Zheng, 1993, and the evolution of exceptionally long necks in mamenchisaurids, Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, 21:1, https://doi.org/10.1080/14772019.2023.2171818

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Hot-Delay5608 t1_jcczqyx wrote

Reply to Twitter conspiracy theories during the pandemic involving Bill Gates. The study found what is most concerning is the speed and rapid spread of bot use to unforeseen areas. Researchers are just beginning to get a glimpse of issues and concerns that will result from this technology by Wagamaga

The problem is not that those bots exist. The problem is the unwillingness of the Social media companies to take those bots down. They increase engagement and that's all they care about. The technology is not an issue it's the greed

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AutoModerator t1_jccy6un wrote

Reply to Sauropod specimen found in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region may have had the longest neck of any known dinosaur — measuring about 15.1 m, more than the height of the Hollywood sign by marketrent

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MarkNutt25 t1_jccvwjm wrote

Reply to Researchers: Floating solar panels could provide over a third of global electricity by TurretLauncher

The thing is, I don't really feel like the main issue holding back solar power production is a lack of physical space where we can put the panels.

Look at Nevada. We could probably cover 75% of the land area of the state in solar panels before having to put a single panel within sight of anyone's house! We've got absolute fucktons of basically unused space right here on land, which is going to be way cheaper to build on and way easier to maintain.

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Lyotan t1_jccv1mr wrote

Reply to comment by riazrahman in Malformations in heart, eyes and nervous system: Nano-plastics disrupt growth by giuliomagnifico

You asked the right question. So I spent 2 hours reading this paper and the recent study on microplastics in human blood. (linked near the end of the paper)

Fair warning i am not a qualified scientist.

1st, the metrics aren't truly comparable because we aren't good at measuring microplastics yet? This paper used known lab prepared samples. Meanwhile, the blood study was very limited by the minimum level of detecting any quantity of plastic and inability to count the number or size of particles.

2nd, the blood study restricted itself to filtering out only microplastics >700nm, the chicken study used a few 1,000nm and 500nm particles for certain parts of the experiment but the most work was done with 25nm specifically because it was the most lethal to chicks in their previous study.

3rd, and possibly most important, the point of this paper was to find where the nanoplastics preferred to go in embryo development and if they had any specific potential effects. ESPECIALLY in regards to new microplastics based medication and treatment options being explored right now.

TLDR: After looking at the human blood study concentrations and how much passes through the placenta, we aren't nearly at the level used in the chicken experiment. But microplastic levels are only going to increase, even if we all stop using plastic today. Importantly, microplastic medication/treatments in development need to take extra cautions in further study.

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