Science

TLDR: New REBCO superconductor can operate with significantly less insulation, allowing them to be built much smaller. Thereby making critical space for other components, while being more resilient overall.

From the article:

“The standard way to build these magnets is you would wind the conductor and you have insulation between the windings, and you need insulation to deal with the high voltages that are generated during off-normal events such as a shutdown.” Eliminating the layers of insulation, he says, “has the advantage of being a low-voltage system. It greatly simplifies the fabrication processes and schedule.” It also leaves more room for other elements, such as more cooling or more structure for strength.

Open access preprint: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/9pv38

(sans paywall courtesy of the only reason I have a bluesky account)

Friendly reminder: https://gizmodo.com/the-eu-suppressed-a-300-page-study-that-found-piracy-do-1818629537

Famed naturalist Charles Darwin amassed an impressive personal library over the course of his life, much of which was preserved and cataloged upon his death in 1882. But many other items were lost, including more ephemeral items like unbound volumes, pamphlets, journals, clippings, and so forth, often only vaguely referenced in Darwin's own records.

For the last 18 years, the Darwin Online project has painstakingly scoured all manner of archival records to reassemble a complete catalog of Darwin's personal library virtually. The project released its complete 300-page online catalog—consisting of 7,400 titles across 13,000 volumes, with links to electronic copies of the works—to mark Darwin's 215th birthday on February 12.

Prior to this new discovery, the earliest known use of the decimal point was by German mathematician Christopher Clavius as he was creating astronomical tables—the resulting work was published in 1593.

Glen Van Brummelen, a mathematical historian at Trinity Wester University in Canada, has now found use of a decimal point by a Venetian merchant 150 years before in a manuscript written by Giovanni Bianchini in the 1440s.

Giovanni Bianchini worked as a merchant in Venice for many years before being appointed to an administrative role with a major estate owned by the powerful d'Este family. In this role, he also managed assets and investments, giving him a strong background in mathematics. He also published astronomy texts, demonstrating his ability to plot planetary motion and to predict when an eclipse would occur.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/1864045

Things seem dire...

We must act now and do actual activism, imho.

Not just "educate" people on these issues.

The reasons for going to the moon vary: from scientific knowledge and technological advances to the prospect of accessing potentially useful lunar resources and political or economic value.

But in such a crowded field, the big question is who will become the next major global player in the next phase of lunar exploration. It will no longer be the sole preserve of national space agencies; commercial companies also want a piece of the lunar action.

The papers by different scientists are all based on research that draws on DNA samples collected from populations in China. In several cases, the researchers used samples from populations deemed by experts and human rights campaigners to be vulnerable to exploitation and oppression in China, leading to concerns that they would not be able to freely consent to such samples being taken.

One retracted paper studies the DNA of Tibetans in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, using blood samples collected from 120 individuals. The article stated that “all individuals provided written informed consent” and that work was approved by the Fudan University ethics committee.

But the retraction notice published on Monday stated that an ethical review “uncovered inconsistencies between the consent documentation and the research reported; the documentation was not sufficiently detailed to resolve the concerns raised”.

The Joint European Torus (JET), one of the world's largest and most powerful fusion machines, has demonstrated the ability to reliably generate fusion energy, while simultaneously setting a world record in energy output. These notable accomplishments represent a significant milestone in the field of fusion science and engineering. In JET's final deuterium-tritium experiments (DTE3), high fusion power was consistently produced for five seconds, resulting in a ground-breaking record of 69 megajoules using a mere 0.2 milligrams of fuel.

Video of the fusion reaction at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpg5axJmxdQ